Thanksgiving Abroad

Have you ever been held hostage by someone at a party who shares common interests? The mixing of new and disparate things, that’s what I like, not the regurgitation of culture I already know. I thought (read: hoped) that would’ve been an American thing, holding a guest politely hostage, what with our compulsion to be nice and include everyone.

It is most certainly not.

So, at least in that way, Thanksgiving abroad is just the same mucky, lovely, claustrophobic social function. It still turns four walls into a pipe bomb; the explosive solution comprised of one part cooking fumes, another part human sweat, and the final portion a healthy mix of irritation and awkwardness. Strangled fumes of politics and religions still hung over our heads, perhaps not as concentrated due to the average ‘leftness’ of Europeans in general.

Then you just sit, basting in the turkey fumes, trying to cling to some nice conversation as a mechanism to pass the time.

If you’re lucky enough, the conversation is actually nice.

Or, if you’re like me, the other self-proclaimed nerd starts talking to you about our ‘niche’ culture.

The kind’ve guy who thinks liking Batman movies still makes you a nerd, or who thinks a ‘sported’ debate of Marvel and DC Comics movies couldn’t be had by practically everyone in the room.

The silliest part is that the most interesting conversation often arise from those who know little, so why would I want to speak to another ‘nerd’ culture expert? Fresh eyes fish fresh thought.

So, Oscar the Frenchman, you’re a nice guy. Just dial it back a little. We don’t need to talk about pop culture for two hours straight, especially if I have to listen to your slightly condescending tone regarding nerd culture. Blegh.

This turkey day was thrown together by a Nebraskan named Maggie, her food was excellent, her charm as host just the same. Most of the Europeans (Spaniards, French, German) thought that the ‘saying what you’re thankful for’ was just a stereotype, not a practiced ritual in many (usually religious from what I can gather) households. Fortunately, the bucolic Maggie was steadfast in our adherence to the turkey’s wishes.

We all got food, sat with the turkey waiting on our plates, and said our thanks one by one. Most were of the thanks were similar—variations and derivatives of “thankful for Dundee and the opportunity to meet all of you.” Easy, clean. I decided to thank fresh starts.

That’ll probably come up for a later post, or more likely just be something that I talk about when I get the eventual question in person of “was it life-changing?”

I felt awkward at times, but for a peculiar reason. Several times throughout the night, as I enjoyed a conversation with an absolutely lovely French girl named Anne, a silence would fall over the room. This left me speaking alone while trying to continue the conversation with Anne. All eyes would eventually drift to me, which would of course make it hard for me to focus on the conversation. I looked out into the room, bug eyed, waiting for one of my silent peers to make a sound.

At first, I thought I was speaking too loudly and accidentally overpowered the adjacent pairs of talkers, but after talking to my flatmate about the night, she said that wasn’t the case; that we were just having an interesting conversation and the rest were curious. She said that I had great social skills and helped alleviate the awkwardness. That was nice.

Somehow things devolved into naming as many US States as possible within 10 minutes, then to a counting game, then to Uno when enough people left. An Asian girl named Cynthia won like 80% of the time, it was genuinely uncanny. Is there some super-secret Uno strategy I don’t know about? I left soon after, around 11:30 pm, then called my family back in California.

On the way back I walked by a cobblestone bike enclosure. Thick metal spokes, a few dark corners untouched by lacking light, and a high spigot connected to a heating element of some type. Corporeal vapor poured out from the spigot, drawing viscous shapes comprised of the hoary gas. I was able to contort my mind and see figures in the smoke, vestiges of people now gone whom left their silhouettes. It was spooky, and fun.

The best part of the night was the next morning. I was tired from being socially drained.

I woke early, the first whispers of morning blue trickling through cracks in my blinds. I had no classes to go to, no homework to finish. I was free to fall back into a warm slumber, embrace the radiant cocoon of my bed as it shielded me from the sea-chilled morning air.

Soft taps of rain on glass coaxed me back to sleep.