Food Babies and Free Beer!

Turkey! Just as good as the ones in the states :)

Last Friday a good portion of the AYF students gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving together. We had a huge room in the basement of one of the dorm buildings and (almost) everyone signed up to bring some kind of delicious food item to the dinner. We gathered at 6 pm and socialized for a bit to allow the accidental latecomers and the people who are always "fashionably late" to arrive, although there were more than a few grumbles from people's mouths and stomachs alike. Once everything was in order, we had quite an impressive spread which I would say could have rivaled any Thanksgiving dinner back in the states! There were mashed potatoes, fresh grilled vegetables (carrots, zucchini, etc.), scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, green beans, green bean casserole, garlic bread and rolls, and of course Turkey! The dessert table was overflowing as well - there was homemade apple pie, pumpkin pie, and more pie that tasted like sweet potato pie but the baker swears that it was pumpkin. It was delicious either way! We also had a fresh sliced fruit and dip spread and freshly baked cookies.

Aside from the delicious food, the company was great as well! The majority of us present were AYF affiliated, but some brought their friends and/or roommates. A special Russian guitar quartet was also invited and they performed a few songs for us because they are friends of the AYF program Resident Director. All in all it was a wonderful time and many laughs were had! All of us left with "food babies" since we ate so much it felt like we had an extra few pounds in our bellies!

Beer provided by the sponsoring company

That same night there also happened to be a dorm party in my building, so after the dinner I headed back to my place, birthed my food baby (let my dinner settle), cleaned up a bit, and waited with my housemates for the "guests" to arrive. I put guests in quotation marks because of the more than 100 people in attendance, I only knew a handful of them, but it wasn't bad. I met lots of people that night, listened to good music, stopped a guy from stealing eggs out of our fridge, and finally made it to bed at half past 3. One of the guys who lives on the floor below me got the company that he works for to sponsor the party. Apparently if he had enough people in attendance and advertised their products during the event, they were willing to pay for the costs of the party. So we had a packed dorm, free beer, wine, and red bull, and blasting music - all in all it made for a pretty fun Friday night! Although I lost a good chunk of my day on Saturday cleaning up with my housemates :(

Celebrating with my fellow Americans really tempered my holiday homesickness - I'm already looking forward to Christmas!