The importance of Expat Thanksgiving

I'll admit that even by lax Andalucian standards (with the strange exception of the bus schedule, I've found the southern Spanish stereotype regarding tardiness to be fairly accurate), this entry comes a bit late. It's even later than it might have been, because once we passed the New Year I had serious misgivings about posting at all. But who knows where I might be or what I might be thinking about Thanksgiving next year? I'd like to take a "better late than never, better properly written than slapdash" philosophy to this blog. So: onward!

I've spent a few holidays abroad in my time-- July 4th in China (2007), Greece (2009), or Spain (2012). Christmas in Spain (2009, 2010), England (2011), and Ireland (2012.) My birthday in Italy (2009 and 2012) and Spain/Germany (2011.) Thanksgiving in France (2009) and Spain (2011)-- and again this year. Each celebration abroad mixes the familiar and the new in an exciting way, and I've deeply enjoyed sharing elements of my favorite traditions (whether they be Independence Day s'mores or latkes on Hannukah) with new friends that have already taught me a great deal.

French Thanksgiving in 2009 was a magical affair: it took place in a borrowed apartment in Normandy stocked full of couchsurfers from Cherbourg and stuffed to the gills with instant mashed potatoes, chicken from the village rotisserie, and homemade Norman apple pie (more like a tart by American standards.) Last year's Palentino Thanksgiving was equally full of newness and excitement, as well as a dear friend who came to visit. She brought with her canned cranberry sauce, stuffing mix, and more instant mashed potatoes-- as well as a contagious love for the holiday that added spark to the proceedings.

Then, in what seemed like a blink, November came around again, bringing with it my third Thanksgiving outside US borders. For 2012, I arranged an elaborate meal with Hannah, a new American friend in Linares. We invited several Spanish (and two Polish) friends, who in turn invited their friends, and in the end we had a total of 12 people sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner! It was a little bit of an overwhelming prospect, but with determination and a dollop of team work we were able to produce a menu that included: an apple pie, two pumpkin pies, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, graving, salad, and cranberry sauce (my pride and joy, concocted using reconstituted dried cranberries and--incredibly deliciously--an entire pomegranate.)

The results of a great deal of hard work! (Mostly Hannah's)

The day itself was full of happy, crowded chaos, exactly as a Thanksgiving should be. The invited throng trickled in starting around 3 PM--for once Spanish dining times coincided with American traditions-- just as Hannah and I were putting the finishing touches on the menu. The pies, which we had baked the previous night, were set to cool on the porch; the chickens were just coming out of the oven. We enlisted the cheerfully-complaining help of Maria and Jose to carve them and Polish Zeb to put some elbow grease into the mashed potatoes. Drinks were poured, places were set, the menu was translated among three languages, and we all sat down to a lip-smacking, multilingual, multicultural feast. (Of course, beforehand, Hannah and I insisted on following the time-honored tradition of saying something you're thankful for.)

The assembled Thanksgiving crew, before the meal

A complete Thanksgiving plate--even with cranberry sauce!

The meal was a total success. The conversation was peppered with compliments on the food (most of which our friends had never tried before) and a butchered/simplified version of the Thanksgiving story; the pumpkin pie, gravy, and cranberry sauce were particular hits. After a solid afternoon of eating and cleaning up, I even had a chance to take the customary post-Thanksgiving nap (here again Spanish and American traditions intersected.) I drowsed happily, thinking of people at home doing the same.

And here's the thing: it wasn't just people at home. In the coming days I saw pictures of expat friends all over the world celebrating. One in Beijing posted photos of a complicated Western-style spread; an acquaintance working for an NGO in Sudan took to his blog to describe in detail the effort of procuring a scrawny African chicken, getting it butchered, and preparing it for his feast. The next day, another NGO-worker, this one on the island of East Timor, posted pictures on Facebook of herself sharing a cooked, honeyed squash with a neighbor. There were no turkeys to be found, she said-- this was the closest she could approximate. Other friends throughout Spain sent anecdotes about the best way to make cranberry sauce (that's where I got the tip about using dried cranberries) or adventures adapting to Basque palates. It seemed like every expat I knew was going to extraordinary lengths to celebrate Thanksgiving, and it got me thinking--why are we so compelled to bring these American customs abroad, and what so is so specifically powerful about Thanksgiving?

I believe our expat Thanksgiving celebrations reflect our experiences living abroad as a whole. We spend most of the year immersed in otherness, a constant newness I personally find exciting and fresh,  exotic and educational. Over time, we adopt some of that newness as our own. Before my experience living in Spain, I couldn't imagine eating dinner outside of my family's customary 6:15-7:30 window. Now the thought of life without a mid-day siesta, eating dinner before 9 (or, God forbid, the senior citizen early bird special), forgoing tapas or tortilla (Spanish omelette) is horrifying; the idea of being able to go grocery shopping or do other normal errands on a Sunday seems absurd. I don't know how long it will take me to stop saying "hasta luego" at the end of every conversation or "perdona" when I bump into someone in the street. All of these very Spanish things have become an important part of me, Alissa-in-2013.

I think Thanksgiving maintains its power even over slowly-adapting expat lives because of its near universality within the US. American Indians apart, every family has a Thanksgiving ritual (even if, as in some cases, it's a lack of ritual). The holiday follows the powerful narrative of "becoming American"-- anyone can take part, regardless of religion, creed, or race; whether there's quinoa in the stuffing, curry on the turkey, or no turkey at all. Our memories of these days each year-whether they include elaborate cooking or family squabbles or beer and football or long drives or quiet time on the couch-- are something we can use as a marker, to remind us of who we were before we became our expat selves. And that makes Thanksgiving something that we can share back with the people who make our new lives abroad so rich. Thanksgiving means that we can say, if only for one day-- here, you've taught me so much about new music, new traditions, new tastes. Let me show you a little about where I'm from. Let me remind myself.


The glorious pies, against their very Spanish tiled "azulejo" background: maybe the epitome of what Expat Thanksgiving can mean





Evidence of a successful day

Southern Crossing: Atlanta-Charleston

Atlanta marked the apex of our swing through the south, and so when we left John's house early in the morning we were driving north for the first time in more than a week. We set off northwest toward the South Carolina border, stopping mid-day in Athens, Georgia, a still-waking-from-winter tourist town that featured a lovely walking path along the river. We stripped off our sweatshirts, relishing the warm air, and enjoyed the flowers and trees along the walk-- two northeastern girls ecstatic to have driven into spring.

An old train bridge in Athens, Georgia

Spring flowers

Awesome

South Carolina is a big state, so although we crossed the border shortly after Athens it took us all of the afternoon and some of the evening to arrive in Charleston. I could tell that the sunset was going to be incredible, and we decided we wanted to go out to the tip of the city, an area called the Battery where the river and the ocean meet, to watch. But in my hurry to get us there, I got turned around with the map and we ended accidentally going in the opposite direction. We watched the orange ball flicker from behind buildings as we raced the sunset and lost, but it didn't matter. Even without the sun, that night's sunset was one of the best of my life. We jumped out of the car and ran across the manicured lawns of the Battery to the river. There was a light breeze, warm and moist as bath water, and we watched pelicans swoop over the water in the blue air as the horizon turned deep pink and orange.

As if all that weren't magical enough, as we watched the horizon transform we heard a strange squeaking. For a sudden period of ten minutes only a swarms of insect appeared, and a cloud of bats followed, making strange, gravity-defying turns in the air to feed. As quickly as they came, they were gone (and the insects with them.) We were left to marvel at the water, the sunset growing more vivid by the minute on one side, and a full, white moon hanging 180 degrees behind, over the rooftops of the city.

Stunning.

Possibly the best sunset of my life thus far: Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

We walked back to the car, enjoying the Charleston night, dropped our things at our (fantastic) hostel and went looking for dinner.

Light on a colonial house, on the walk back to the hostel

We found ourselves in one of Charleston's main arteries, choosing a casual restaurant where we could dine outside and enjoy our tank-topped-at-night freedom. Our server, Isaac, was very friendly and made small talk as we ate our meal and enjoyed the mix of spring air and margaritas. Originally from Mexico, he was now a geology student at the nearby College of Charleston, and he offered to be our guide to the city the next day. We gratefully accepted. The rest of the night was spent on our hostel's front porch, drinking Yuengling and talking about the world--just the way nights at hostels always seem to go.

The next day was especially full because we weren't sure when we would be leaving Charleston. We spent the morning exploring a few of the old neighborhoods, ending up in the tourist hub of the city on a carriage ride. Normally, we would not have entertained the possibility of this kind of activity. But because I was still recovering from my broken ankle it actually made a lot of sense, as we could cover a large area without exacerbating my injury. Besides, the carriages were quite charming.

Images from Charleston's Civil War-era neighborhoods:

(Note the intense fence, for guarding against slave revolts)

The triple porch is very typically Charleston



The tour was quite interesting. We learned a lot about Charleston history, about the high life now (for example: Many of the nicest houses use gas lamps instead of electricity because it's more expensive and thus shows their wealth. Also, many Charleston houses are very long and skinny because house owners were taxed based on their street-front property, rather than the overall area of their houses.) I think my favorite thing we learned was about the little old Charleston ladies who still refer to the Civil War as "The Recent Unpleasantness."

The tour ended back where it began, in the midst of an enormous, tourist-soaked craft market. We embraced the commercialism for a moment, getting lost in the sea of people and art. I took the lesson I learned in China about controlling your tourist experience and put it to good use: I ended up buying a woven basket from one of the many women dotting the market, who stood out because of their ebony skin and what seemed like acres of woven baskets surrounding them. These women were part of the Gullah culture, an ex-slave community that grew up in the barrier islands of the Carolinas during and after the Civil War. The baskets are traditional crafts of Gullah people, and I took it upon myself to talk to the women who made my basket, something I didn't see too many other people bothering to do. She told me about learning to weave from her mother; about how her whole family is part of the process; about how her elderly father still goes out every week on Sundays into the marshes to collect the reeds to dry and make baskets. Emma laughed and told me I was "such an anthropologist." Maybe it's true, but for me that made the experience, and the basket, all the richer. Why buy something if you don't know the story behind it? Really, for me, the story is the most valuable part. The basket is really only a reminder of that story.

Woven Gullah baskets at the market

That afternoon we explored the city further, walking through the lovely multi-colored neighborhoods to one of the oldest synagogues in the United States, Temple Kahal Kadosh, which dates back to the Civil War. I was not expecting to get in touch with my Jewish heritage during a trip to the American south, but this temple was beautiful and story of the Charleston Jews quite interesting. This was the place that the Reform movement took hold in the US, and there was some interesting lore about tensions between Reform and Orthodox before the split. The building was beautiful; we were given a short tour, and both of us bought "Shalom Y'all" t-shirts in the gift shop.

The fourth-oldest temple in the United States

The caption above the bimah (platform) says "Know Before Whom Thou Standest"

It was about this time that Emma and I called Isaac, our waiter from the night before. He met us in the Battery and led us around the city to some of his favorite neighborhoods. We had a delicious picnic from a restaurant called Five Loaves, heard a little about South Carolina's geological history, and walked along a promenade by the beautiful harbor, where the river meets the sea. The three of us plus Susan, one of Isaac's college friends, spent what became another spectacular sunset at Isaac's favorite rooftop bar, where I had a mint julep in honor of where we were.

Sunset at the rooftop bar

As dusk fell, we were faced with an important decision. Our hostel was full for the night, and we had originally planned on moving on to the north part of the state that evening. Having decided we were too in love with the city to leave quite yet, we had thought we might spend the night on the beach, but the weather was a bit chilly for that kind of adventure. Luckily, Isaac was kind enough to offer to let us stay in his apartment for the night. Without realizing it, we had discovered couchsurfing.

The evening that followed was wonderful, surreal, hilarious. Isaac took Emma and me back to his house, then invited over a friend of his, John, who was on furlough from the Army. John was a tall, lanky blond soldier with an aristocratic southern accent (a la Rhett Butler). As we later discovered, he also had a photographic memory, but that didn't become evident until he rattled off a list of the past 15 presidents and their vice presidents, in order and with dates of office, during a lightly alcoholic game of Trivial Pursuit.

The evening got continually weirder as we ventured to, of all things, a Red Sox bar in downtown Charleston, then home again after enjoying some pool and the rowdy atmosphere. John lost his social skills as he drank, but that made him more interesting to be around. In fits and starts, he told us the story of a nerdy, intensely smart boy in rural South Carolina who knew early on that something about how his brain worked was different. Frustrated that the teachers at his school could not give him the education his overactive mind needed and unable to come up with the funds to escape to college, he had finally joined the military, eschewing higher education. The violence and psychological stresses of his life and his sheer intellectual capability had come together to create a formidable, but slightly off-kilter, intellect.

John had a fabulous sense of humor but little concept of social mores. He told jokes and stories entertainingly but had no sense of physical boundaries. One minute he leaned in too close, telling us about his anti-piracy missions in India and boasting about the number of pirates he'd killed (19); the next he flopped across the couch, detailing an intricate, light-hearted system for rating women on the street and an in-depth theory about Woody Allen films. In short, he was the sort of character you only meet on a road trip and the kind that every road trip needs.

Needless to say, an evening with him and Isaac provided plenty of entertainment and food for thought. We went to bed at 3:30 and were up at 6 to drive to the Isle of Palms for sunrise on the beach.

Southern Crossing: Nashville

We arrived in Nashville early afternoon, the sky iron gray and the wind kicking up. We met my friend John, who long time readers of this blog will know from my time abroad in Kunming, on the Vanderbilt campus, where we would be staying with him and his girlfriend Lisa, who was a senior there at the time. Lisa and her housemates were planning a barbecue for later that night, so we took a few hours that afternoon to go to one of Nashville's coolest /oddest landmarks, a full-scale model of the Parthenon in Greece. I'm told that even the statues inside are perfectly replicated. But you had to pay to get in, so we settled for frolicking in the parkland around the building and buying postcards at the tiny gift shop.


Shots of the Parthe-Non (geddit?)


We returned to the Vanderbilt campus in time for the beginning of the barbecue, which featured at least three or four different sauces from around the region. The food was delicious, and it felt lovely and freeing to meet people going to a school so far from mine, to see how their lives as students were both different and the same as what I was used to.

Vanderbilt campus, early Spring


The next morning we met Lisa after her class and took her and John out for breakfast at a local breakfast joint called the Pancake Pantry, which was insanely delicious. Emma tried out a traditional savory southern pancake style, while I opted for the decadent pancakes with cinnamon creme. Which: oh, man, party in my mouth. Pancake Pantry was a lovely, quirky restaurant with a huge dining room and interesting decorations. This one in particular:

Really, guys? Really?

We spent the rest of the day wandering from landmark to landmark around Nashville. We tried on cowboy hats downtown:


Made a visit to the Grand Ole Opry (sadly you can't go inside the hall without a ticket):


And finished with a historic tour of a cotton plantation. This was new territory for both Emma and me. Growing up in the northeast we had our share of American Revolution education, trips to Plymouth Plantation, Walden Pond, Boston's Freedom Trail, and whatnot. And of course we had read textbooks aplenty about the Civil War and the slavery era. But seeing it up close is, of course, profoundly different. So we drove out to Belle Meade plantation, which is now a museum, outside Nashville. It was late enough in the day that we were able to enter without buying tickets (good for our wallets; admission was a bit pricey) and spend a good hour and a half exploring the several-acre site. The museum has preserved the buildings beautifully and includes lots of information about conditions, as well as a few surprising elements like a great collection of old-style carriages and buggies.


Talk about a contrast in amenities: The main house...

...versus slave quarters

It was actually ideal to come to Bell Meade so late in the day. We had a lot of freedom to walk in the quiet and didn't have to deal with a lot of other visitors. It was a perfect atmosphere for serious reflection, and coming to site of former slavery induces that in a person. We didn't talk much as we made the rounds, but had a contentious discussion on the drive back. Coming face to face with your country's ugly past can be hard and scary but it's also necessary.

We found a lighter way to spend the night in downtown Nashville, putting the rigors of the afternoon behind us. We reveled in the tacky souvenir shops selling "You know you're a redneck if..." t-shirts and confederate flags on bumper stickers, wallets, shot glasses.

Emma communes with Elvis in front of a souvenir shop:
Nashville downtown had a great atmosphere. Homey, exciting, and completely unpretentious. We walked up and down the strip, enjoying ice cream and passing up a bar awesomely called "Cotton-Eyed Joe" in favor of another bar, Lila's Bluegrass Inn. The floor was sticky with beer and we settled in to a table halfway back in the half-filled room, watching a country band play, the singer stomping her high-heeled boots and whooping between verses. Neither of us can be called country music lovers at home, but more and more we found we could enjoy it in its cultural context. It just seemed right.

Outside Lila's Bluegrass Inn


Next stop: Birmingham