My Swiss Thanksgiving

Two perfect pies; pumpkin, and apple. 

  

   Yesterday was three months in Switzerland, which for the moment does not seem at all possible. I never realized that time would fly by so fast. Home, being Portland Oregon, seems so far away. A place that exists alone, another planet, so far away from Switzerland that it does not seem only a plane ride away. Of course I miss my family, but I cannot imagine not have ever getting on that plane three months ago, which has already changed my life.

   Tomorrow, is Thanksgiving, a holiday which is not celebrated Switzerland, and one of my absolute favorites. I knew that I would really miss home, so I decided I would make Thanksgiving for my host family. When I started planning, I didn't realize it would take so much time and effort.

   First, we had to pick a date. I have school on Thanksgiving, and would not have time to cook, so it would need to be a weekend. Next we needed to find a weekend where the most people would come, and I wanted it as close as the real Thanksgiving as possible. The date which worked perfectly for most everyone was last Saturday, November 19th.

  The next on the list was making the shopping list, and deciding which dishes I would make. I went for the traditional, everything that we would eat at home on Thanksgiving, except for the gravy. I just didn't have the time. On Thanksgiving, we of course have to eat Turkey. There were at first a few problems with the turkey, first the turkey's are not available in the Swiss grocery stores until Christmas time, so we had to order one. And next, which size? We ordered the turkey in Kilograms, which are smaller than pounds. It turned out we could have ordered a larger turkey, we had absolutely no left-overs.

  Friday after school, I rushed home so that we could start shopping. I had my extensive list written, organized by each dish. And within an hour found everything we needed. We headed home, and I started preparing food for the next day. I had to prepare the stuffing, so that the spices and vegetable flavorings would soak into the bread cubes. I also had to make the dough for the rolls, it needs to rise in the fridge.

   I woke up Saturday morning, at 8:00 am, which I would agree is quite to early to wake up on a weekend, but I had to make the pie dough made and get the pies in the oven. I had cooked the pumpkin the night before, so that I would not need to worry about it taking too long the next day. A note on pumpkins in Switzerland; first, there are no pumpkins in grocery stores, second German only has the word for 'curbis' meaning squash, not a pumpkin in particular, and third you have to order a pumpkin if you are in need of said pumpkin for a pie.

   Once I finished my pies, I made one pumpkin and one apple, I had to start working on everything else. The turkey, needed to be in the oven by 2:00pm, which left me a little time to decorate the table and clean up my mess, before I made another mess.

  Cooking a turkey, in the USA, requires a regular sized turkey oven. But in Switzerland, the mention of an oven used maybe twice a year, only for the Thanksgiving Turkey, is an absurd idea. Actually, when I mentioned it, my entire host family thought I was joking. I followed a simple recipe to cook the turkey, which turned out to be fairly easy, but time consuming.

  The last hour, before we ate, I was absolutely everywhere. I had everything to finish, but I had a lot of help, and everything fell together perfectly. I cooked the entire day and I was completely exhausted, but the pay off was well worth it. To me the best way to celebrate Thanksgiving, is with family, and I did just that. I absolutely thrilled with the reactions of my host family, almost all of the food was devoured. I am proud to say, that my first Thanksgiving, cooking alone, was in Switzerland. You can't get any better than that!

My wonderful Turkey

                                                                             
 

Moments of Adventure

   It's been a while since I last posted, three weeks to be exact, I thought today would be a wonderful day to share some of the happenings of my Swiss life. The first full week of November was a wonderful one, only two full days of real school. We had Monday and Tuesday off for All Saints day, Wednesday and Friday were in school, and Thursday was spent in Zurich visiting art museums with my class. With a full four day weekend in front of me, I took the opportunity to catch up on lost sleep.
 
  Of course, I could not sleep the entire weekend away so on Tuesday I spent the day in Bern ice skating with other exchange students. I am not the most coordinated person out there, which made ice skating fairly difficult. I cannot remember the last time i went ice skating, which made it all the more difficult. I fell quite a few times, and once was not entirely my fault. I was skating, very cautiously, when I was accidentally spooked by someone who mistakes me for someone else. It was extremely hilarious for me, and in true exchange student fashion, this lovely moment was caught on camera.

'Oops, I thought you were Bren'.
Another note, I am laughing in this picture, not crying. 

  We ice skated for a few hours, but because we all had school the next day we headed back to central Bern to grab something to eat and head back home. Some of the exchange students stayed, because they don't live so far away, but my feet were sore so I decided it would be a good time to head back. Me and three other exchange students (Two from Canada, and one from Kansas) headed out for Mexican food. After wandering the streets of Zurich for the better part of a half an hour, we landed on a Mexican restaurant. We soon learned that for one, Switzerland is extremely expensive in the Mexican food section, and two that the waiters do not take to kindly when you only order three appetizers and drinks. After our delicious dinner of chips and cheese dip, we all headed back to the Bahnhof (train station) to catch our trains home. It was a wonderful day, and definitely not my last time ice skating, i improved quite a bit towards the end, but I haven't yet mastered how to stop on skates, I ran into quite a few people.

Just of few of us, on the ice, in Bern. What a lovely day it was.

    Thursday, was spent in Zurich in various art museums, with my wonderful class. Normally I hate Thursday's, for one school starts at 7:30 and goes until 5:00pm, which makes me very tired. But this Thursday was actually quite fun, I got to sleep, which of course made the day a lot more bearable. Once we arrived in Zurich, we caught another train to Winterthur, about a 20 minute train ride away, once we arrived we took a tram to a photography museum. The pictures themselves, were interesting, but having to analyzing them was extremely boring. I can hardly stand that in English, and in German, not a chance. We ate lunch in Winterthur, and then headed back to Zurich for my favorite exhibit, 'Photo's of the World 4' which I found absolutely fascinating. There were so many pictures from all over the world, and I found it so interesting. When we left the last museum, we had over an hour break  to hang out in Zurich before catching our train home. 

What a lovely shot?

Peace!