Anyway, Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday whether in America or Albania . . . I love that the point of it is taking time to think about the good things in our lives and reflect on the year. Plus there's the food. The people that work at the US Embassy here have made it a gracious tradition to invite Peace Corps Volunteers to their homes for Thanksgiving dinner. This year I was invited by Mark and Mary, a wonderful couple that works for the military at the Embassy. They live in a big house in Tirana with their dog and cat. Three of us came down on Wednesday night and helped with pie and other food- we made a pretty impressive three layer jello, pumpkin bread (with fresh pumpkin) and lots of goodies. The best thing about staying with expats is that they have a whole bunch of American food. When embassy employees come over from America, they get to bring with them an incredible amount of food. Their allowed amount of consumables (things like food, but also cleaning supplies and laundry detergent) for one year is more than the combined total of all the luggage that all 37 people in my group brought initially to Albania (we get 100lbs. of luggage each . . .), so yeah, it's a crap load of food. They also get to shop at the military commissary in Italy for all those "fresh" kinds of food, like cheddar cheese . . . so in addition to the normal Thanksgiving type things we also got to sample things like queso dip, dill pickles, Dr. Pepper, etc. There were six of us for dinner, plus a few other people from the embassy. I literally ate until I couldn't anymore. And then I ate some more. And then I had dessert. 
The other great thing about Mark and Mary's house is that they have the Armed Forces TV, so we were able to watch the Macy's parade and the football games. We also went to the "Ridge" (the American Ambassador's housing compound that is basically a small American suburban neighborhood in the middle of Tirana made up of modular houses . . . almost feels a bit Stepfordish . . .) to play touch football with the Marines and Embassy staff. In PC vs. Marines, the Marines kind of killed us . . . but I think I would have been a bit worried if they didn't :). 
All in all it was a very American Thanksgiving, which is exactly what I wanted.
1 comment:
Becca, the 4th generation pie maker! Looks good enough to eat!
Post a Comment