Last year I was living in Portland and spent my Thanksgiving with a large group of other west coast orphans.  We had a great time and it really gave me a chance to appreciate the holiday more than I ever had.  Being away from home made me more conscience of what I had to be thankful for.

Krakow GangThis year was exponentially more powerfull.  Tim and I had a train to catch leaving Poland on thursday night at 10:30.  The Krakow gang had planned a big Thanksgiving dinner for anyone that was interested in going.  There were Americans (both current residents and ex-pats), Canadians, Poles, Brits and someothers that I can’t remember.  Steve had left that morning, but Ian was there that night and so were Anna and Katie.  It was nice to spend that time with Steve and Ian because we were together the year before for our midwest meets west coast Thanksgiving.  The turkey we finally found was frozen and we didn’t get it till the afternoon so we had to flash thaw it in the bath tub… a bird bath (bad joke).   And, of course, at 8:28pm we were deep into our circle of thanks. 

It was hard to leave such a lively group right in the middle of the party, but Tim and I had a train to catch… and we really didn’t want to do dishes.  Filled up on stuffing and wine, we were ready to sleep through our 15 hour train ride back to Arad where….

We did Thanksgiving all over again!

A volunteer in a small town outside of Arad had organized a dinner of about 13 volunteers and 20 romanians.  It was nice to get out into the countryside of RO after spending a crazy week in Poland, but my late nights sure didn’t get any earlier.We hung out friday night in the cabana in the woods and caught up after having spent a few months apart at our sites.  We had great food that night and lots of fun sharing our holiday with Romanians.  Highlights of the night include:

  • Deep fried turkey, it was my first experience with that, and I don’t think I can go back
  • Stirring the big bowl of mashed potatoes with a rolling pin
  • Having a dance party in the tiny kitchen
  • The french guy dancing on top of the old iron stove and waking up to find his shoes had melted on the bottoms
  • Did I mention deep fried turkey?
  • Sleeping in a bed by myself (needless to say sleeping conditions were a little cramped in Krakow)
  • Sitting around a fire

Well, chalk up another great Thanksgiving.  Now I’m back in Reghin and have to do work and wake up “early” and upload pictures and clean my apartment and study romanian and …