Joyeux Thanksgiving!

The Thanksgiving dinner with the Americans in my program was quite an experience. There were about eighty people in a room- all the students, host families, and teachers associated with IAU Avignon. Let’s just say it was my first Thanksgiving with a cheese course. Because the host families were primarily in charge of bringing food, it turned into more of a large French-style feast than a Thanksgiving, although they did order some delicious turkey. Quiche was prevalent on the table, as was French bread and wine. Thus, the pumpkin pie that I made with my host dad was very much appreciated by all the Americans and even managed to receive an anonymous love letter. As this was a typical French feast, it lasted about 3 hours. I was in great company with my host family, my friend and his host mom, and my economics professor. A different but enjoyable thanksgiving…I did have fun skyping the real Thanksgiving celebration in America afterwards!

My train ride to Amsterdam was ridiculously long and my train experiences have become very much trial-and-error, although usually with good results. Had I read the instructions for my Eurail pass, I would have known that I had to validate it before getting on the train. The funny thing is, the French ticket controller either didn’t notice or didn’t care—it was only after I switched trains in Paris to go to Amsterdam that the ticket man became upset. Luckily he was capable of validating it and did so there, although not without grumbling. The adventure continued when the next person came to look at the tickets and informed me that the train would not be going to the Amsterdam central station, but only to the airport- from there I would need to take another train to get into the city. I was somewhat alarmed for awhile, but it seemed like there were several others in the same situation, so I just stuck with them and we fairly easily got on the train to the central station, only late by about half an hour.

Canal in Amsterdam

Mallory and her friend Laura that’s studying in Paris met me at the train station. That afternoon we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was the one thing that I had really specifically wanted to see in Amsterdam. It was so overwhelming to see so many of Van Gogh’s works at once, but very interesting because they are organized chronologically, explaining the different periods of his life. Because he lived in Arles (a town in the south of France) and I visited recently, I especially enjoyed looking at that period of his life and noted a couple of places that I had seen before depicted in his paintings.

For dinner that night, we went out with Mallory’s distant cousin Anja to get Indonesian and Chinese food! I completely forgot that Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, and when Mallory’s family reminded me, we thought it would be fun to try out the cuisine. So, I had my first taste of Indonesian food! The flavors were sort of an interesting and somewhat unidentifiable mixture- to me it seemed sort of like a compromise between Chinese and Indian food, but it was pretty good.

me and laura, ready to eat indonesian food!

I love the markets in Amsterdam! I went to an outdoor flea market and found some of the most amazing antique/handmade stuff, although I can’t specify a lot of the things that I found because I did some Christmas shopping while I was there. Then, we went to an outdoor food market. I had a taste of my first fresh stroopwaffel (basically a wafer with a sugary caramel sauce in the center), and we bought some Dutch cheese with cloves inside which turned out very tasty and quite different from the typical French cheeses I have become accustomed to.

at the market!

I stayed with Mallory’s extended family in their house which was really conveniently located, and also very typical with the very steep staircases with steps that are about half the normal size. It was a great place to stay, and the family was so welcoming- Susan prepared a Thanksgiving dinner for us in a tiny kitchen only large enough to fit three people. It was delicious and traditional- turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, corn, sweet potatoes. The apple crumble and pecan pie for dessert were divine also. From them, I learned about the traditional Dutch Sinter Klaas (I’m not sure if I spelled that right- but you get the idea, it’s like Santa Claus). He lives in Madrid, except during Christmastime. This means that he doesn’t have elves to help him out, he has Moors. I actually saw him in Amsterdam on a boat in one of the canals, with lots of children with their faces painted black (these were the Moors). The last night I was in Amsterdam, I left my shoe by the fireplace, and I got a chocolate letter E! magic…

My account of my Amsterdam trip is somewhat disjointed and incomplete, but hopefully you get the idea. I am going to have to stop so that I can get back to work. I actually have a decent amount of work to do, which is too bad because I’m down to my last few weeks here and I really want to do things besides study.

Coming up soon: my host dad is going to give me a cooking lesson this Saturday and I am going to make dinner for 5 of my friends! Here’s the menu:

Toasts à chèvre (like bruschetta with goat cheese)
Salade avec sauce maison (salad with homemade dressing)
Canard a l’orange (orange duck- french classic !)
Gratin dauphinois (creamy potato gratin)
Buche de Noel (traditional Christmas cake)

I will be happy to repeat this menu when I get back to the USA!