An American Thanksgiving in Germany

Another Thanksgiving come and gone...I can't believe how fast this year is flying by. On Wednesday morning I embarked on my fairly short journey to Birkenfeld, Germany. My first experience flying Ryan Air was actually really easy. I took the metro to Centrale where many buses were lined up outside taking people to the airports surrounding Milan, including Bergamo where I was flying from. About 45 minutes and 9 euro later I arrived at the airport. Luckily I had packed light enough to carry my bag on. The flight was only an hour long and the Italian man sitting next to me talked my ear off nearly the entire time. Luke picked me up from the airport and seeing a friend from home was such a great feeling! It was extremely surreal to see someone from home in a totally foreign environment.

We spent most of Wednesday catching up, talking about our new, and totally different European lives. He had to finish up some work on the base so we stopped by and afterwards headed to the grocery store (on base). It was like I was immediately transported back to America. Everything was priced in dollars, written in

english, and all the goods were American. It was a pretty nice feeling...especially being

able to find extra crunchy peanut butter...yumm.

Back outside the gates it was time for real food. We wandered around the tiny town of Birkenfeld before heading into one of the only food places that was open. Its the kind

of town that everything shuts down after lunch and before dinner and we were eating at an awkward time. I had a German (I think) version of fast food called a Doner. Pretty much just a pita filled with veggies, meat, and sauce...delicious but huge and very messy! Trying to order food made me remember how disabling it is when you can't speak the language of the country you are visiting. My instincts kept telling me to speak Italian but its totally different and would

n't help! Although I did realize that my Italian must be improving if I feel this way!

We got an early night and I caught up on some much needed sleep! I always forget how nice it is to sleep in without having to wake up (or be woken up) by children. After watching a few episodes of Scrubs we went off to a bakery to get some coffee and pastries. The rest of the morning was spent wandering around a second-hand store picking up some cool trinkets to jazz up Luke's totally empty place. I've always loved second-hand/consignment type stores so exploring a foreign one was like christmas! So many hidden german treasures from the 80s! I ended up buying a crazy mug that seemed pretty stereotypically German. Luke bought a few odds and ends, but scoped out some real treasures for next time haha. Then we headed out into the rain and back to the base for some football. It was freezing and my clothin

g wasn't really rain-ready so I stole a hat, sweater, and rain jacket from Luke and we headed out. Luckily I didn't have to sit out in the rain. One of the other officer's girlfriends was there and the two of us stayed in his jeep and hit it off immediately! She was also a nanny...but in Kentucky so we had a ton of things in common. So needless to say we pretty much ignored the game and just had a blast getting to know eac

h other!

By the time the game was over, the guys were all so muddy they needed showers right away. We also came to the realization that cooking a turkey takes longer than an hour (and it was already close to 4) so we pretty much scrapped the idea of cooking ourselves and headed off to a restaurant in town with a few others. After eating some pizza...so not traditional thanksgiving, but good nonetheless, we headed back to the barracks to watch football and play some pretty competitive games of beer pong. Not an entirely traditional Thanksgiving, but very fun and still very American!

Friday morning was spend watching more movies. It really reminded me of being back in college, and I forgot how much I miss being able to just kick back and relax with a good friend. For lunch we headed down into down and I had some snitzel (no idea how its spelled but i figured i was in germany i needed to try it). We then wandered around Birkenfeld...which really takes no more than 10 minutes and stopped into another bakery and second-hand shop. By that time the rain was coming down pretty hard so we retreated back into Luke's apartment for a couple more movies.

The flight home was easy. I stocked up on chocolates and bought some toys for the kids in duty free and then got a pretzel while waiting for my flight. I even started talking to some American students from South Carolina who were studying abroad. One guy was from San Mateo, California (Bay Area) and the other from Ellicot City, Maryland (near where I went to 6th grade)...small world!

I arrived back at the Borra household around 11 pm. The kids were sleeping and after some quick unpacking I headed off to bed as well!