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Thanksgiving Abroad

As it's a week later, I thought I'd update everyone on what it was like to spend Thanksgiving, a purely American (and American in its celebration tactics, especially) holiday, in Italy.

First, we'd heard about the handful of restaurants in Milan that would be offering Thanksgiving dinners to patrons. You come in and throw down what should be a reasonable sum of money and have your free run of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and more, or so we expected.

We started looking into these places and - look at that! the prices started at about 55 euros per person and went up from there. You don't have to google the exchange rate - that's upwards of $70 per person for Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. Considering we once got two round-trip flights to Brussels for about 60 euros total, this option was officially eliminated.

Option number two was a simple one: Go to some grocery stores and pick up a few items that would properly mimic Thanksgiving foods. A turkey-based dinner, some mashed potatoes, maybe stuffing, maybe not, and we'll take it from there.

Option 2A is that we'd be going to Stuttgart for the weekend after Thanksgiving and staying with some friends on an American military base, which means that they'd had Thanksgiving and we'd be getting leftovers either way.

With this in mind, we purchased a turkey-thing, got some potatoes, and went to a store that people on the internet had said was very good for American foods. We took one look at the 8+ euros for virtually anything - starting with the same jar of peanut butter we've been regularly buying for 2,20 at a different store - and promptly swore off ever going in that place again.

So it was settled, the turkey-thing and the mashed potatoes on Thursday. But I woke up Thursday morning with a stomach ache. After turning ghost-white on the train to a lesson on Thursday and fainting in the station, Thanksgiving would really have to wait.

We went to Stuttgart anyway as I was feeling good enough to fly on Saturday, and we visited Neuschwanstein Castle on Sunday, which is as-advertised when it comes to outrageous beauty.

Aside from that though, Thanksgiving in Europe has been similar to Thanksgiving in the states: All the toilet-usage but none of the food. For me, at least.

Here's to it being the Wednesday after and I'll get my leftover turkey soon. I think. Maybe.

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