Happy Thanksgiving!

It really didn't feel like Thanksgiving today. Except for the fact that I didn't really hear from people too much since everyone in the US was spending time with their families and were not on the computer! Totally as it should be! This made it very different than every other day!

I slept in a little bit and then worked on homework and other papers until it was time for film class. I have three papers due on Monday. One is for my program (we get an extra credit for doing an extracurricular activity, so we have to write an 8 page paper about it in German. Four pages now and then another four pages in a few weeks). The other two papers are for the American Effect class I'm taking online. Thankfully, those are in English! But one of them has to be 5 pages long!! It was supposed to be a group paper, but I messed up and didn't complete it with my group last week. Thankfully, my professor was really understanding and said that I could turn it in on Monday. Aside from this, I have been really on top of all of my work here. Even a little bit ahead of things sometimes!

In class our teacher asked the Americans what they're doing for Thanksgiving. Some said that they were eating with friends, making dinner on the weekend and then there was one girl who hadn't even rememberd that it was Thanksgiving! Then the professor turned to us (Patrick, Doug and I) and said something to the effect of, "I know what you're doing for dinner, because I will be joining you!" I had no clue that professors were also invited, but everyone in the class thought it was pretty funny. I really like the teacher, so I was kind of excited that he'd be there! We watched more of Turkisch für Anfänger. That show is just...interesting and it surprises me everytime! By the end of class, Patrick would give me an update every few minutes about how much time we had until our feast. When 5 rolls around, we are all ready to get out of there and those last 15 minutes are just killer sometimes, but knowing that we were celebrating Thanksgiving in an hour or so made us even more anxious! It was very strange having class on Thanksgiving...first time ever. Not cool Germany, not cool.

I went home and changed really quickly before meeting the others at AJY. The feast didn't start until 6:00 or so, but Dr. Tracy told us to meet at AJY around 5:30 so we could walk over to the restaurant together. We were all expecting a pretty good feast since it cost 25 Euros to bring a guest! Katie Gramlich's mom sent a box full of little turkeys she had decorated and we put them out on the tables. She sent enough for each student to take one home. Maressa, Heidi and Charis all had class before dinner so they got there a little later. I really wanted to sit with them, but Dr. Tracy wanted us to spread out and have only 3-4 students per table. Katie Wolfe had two friends visiting and since I was the only one they knew, they wanted me to sit with them. That was fine, but I really wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my good friends! I asked them if it would be ok if I switched tables, but they understood it that they would move too. But that couldn't work since Katie was with them and then there'd be too many students at the other table. That was pretty selfish of me, but I just thought they were a little weird and honestly didn't really want to sit there! Another lady from the Akademische Auslandsamt (place for foreign students) sat near me, but she was really quiet and it was hard to talk to her. Dr. Tracy said we could speak English since it was our holiday, but I felt sort of weird speaking it to her because I felt like I should be speaking German. But I had to speak English so that Katie's friends would understand what was being said. It was just a really weird situation. They served salad and bread first and then came the buffet with all the traditional Thanksgiving foods! There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables and a few other things. Everything was pretty normal except for the stuffing. It almost looked like banana bread. They even used a knife to cut it! Tasted really good, but it just looked weird! Then we had pumpkin pie that tasted just like home! So overall, a good night!!

Some people were hanging out after dinner, but I went home so that I could call my family. They all went to the beach for a few days because my grandma, Leah and Kaiden came! I'm so sad that I couldn't be there! I talked to mom, grandma and Leah for awhile and then we decided that we'd talk again on Monday. Derek and dad had gone golfing, so I called Derek's cell phone and talked to them. Even thought I'm not ready to leave Heidelberg, I'm ready to go home! Less than one month left!
This was definitely the strangest Thanksgiving ever. Totally prefer celebrating it in America!! Wonder why!?