Hello Hello! I hoped everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, filled with lots of food and appreciate for friends and family. We all have so much to be thankful for and sometime during our busy lives, we tend to forget and take things and people for granted. Being away from home this year for Thanksgiving was tough, but I am so grateful for my family abroad and appreciated how we all were there for each other during times like this.
Since the UK does not celebrate Thanksgiving, we all had class on Thursday. It was such a strange feeling being in class on Thanksgiving! Although, I did have a couple of British friends wish me ‘Happy Thanksgiving’. It was a novelty for them :)! We didn’t have our dinner on Thursday, but we went all out for dinner on Friday, so you can call that Thanksgiving dinner. As I mentioned last week, we served 30 people in total, so Thursday and Friday were crazy days in the flat. In the end, we made a total of two turkeys, six pies, several casseroles, stuffing, cheesy potatoes, a few salads, sweet potato with marshmallow, Swedish meatballs, cornbread, mash potatoes with gravy, roasted brussel sprouts, butternut squash mash, assorted cheese and olive tray, and so much more. This is all I can remember from memory! Our British friends that were invited were blown away on the amount of food. My guest, Alice, who pays tennis with me had never tried pumpkin pie before and she fell in love with it!
My favorite part about the dinner was seeing all of our friends on campus came together to celebrate this holiday. We explained the history and meaning behind Thanksgiving and some of us even said what we are thankful for. They got to experience a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and they shared stories about their British traditions. Us Luther students were hesitant that it would be slightly awkward and was not sure everyone would mesh well because all of our friends came from different backgrounds and interest, but that was NOT the case at all. Everyone mingled with everyone and it was such a sight! Some of the guest even participated in singing a song that we prepared for everyone.
Overall it was a beautiful night that ended up with everyone making at least another friend. We had good laughs talking about the funny differences between our cultures. For instance, the phrase “chatted up” means flirting in British culture. I have used that phrased often! Also, since our guest from all over England, we learned a lot about the perception about each area. For example, the south is consider ‘posher’ than the north, but the north is consider to have nicer people. It was also funny to hear their impressions of the US and what they know. My guest asked a lot of question about the sororities/fraternities at universities. All of their impressions of the US come from what they see on American movies and media. This really demonstrates how influential media can be.
Here are some pictures and videos of the night!
Nottingham Adventures 