I'm thankful for Mom and Youtube (or Thanksgiving in Oxford)

I wasn't able to go home for Thanksgiving.  Among the 9 of us who live in the house together, 4 are Americans, so we decided to have a "Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner".  As is the case with most of my brilliant ideas, it was much better in theory than in practice.  We were basically reminded every step of the way why this was not the best idea, but we certainly didn't let that stop us!  If all else failed, we figured we would just tell the non-Americans that this is what Thanksgiving dinner was supposed to taste like!  (We also had the number for Pizza Hut written down just to be safe.)

We ran into a NUMBER of obstacles in the lead-up to our Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner.  The first was the food.  It turns out that not all food is available over here.  (That's one of the reasons I like to argue that we are a superpower.  Nuclear weapons?  Large military?  No no.  Pumpkin pie.)  We were able to find a British website where you can order American food, and my friend Julia and I spent about an hour just marvelling at all the happiness.  In the end, though, we managed to stick (mostly) to just the food we needed for Thanksgiving.

We ordered the rest of the food from local grocery stores.  Which led to the next major obstacle: the turkey.  We ordered our food more than a week in advance, and were all excited for it to arrive, when it turned out that the store had refrigeration problems, and wasn't able to send any refrigerated items.  (I still feel a little bad for the woman on the phone who took my call about our lack of turkey delivery.)  Luckily, we were able to order a turkey from a different store, and it was delivered in time.

So now we had the food.  Everything should be set, right?  Of course not.  That would be much to easy.  It turns out you also need kitchen supplies (measuring cups, large pots, meat thermometers).  We are 9 post-grads.  We can't afford anything but absolute basic kitchen supplies (not to mention some of us, myself included, wouldn't know what to do with most of it even if we did have it.)  However, being broke post-grads, we got creative.  We guessed as far as measurements, left out ingredients we didn't have (or accidentally forgot--it turns out condensed milk isn't essential to pumpkin pie), and continually did the dishes so we could make the most of the 14 plates we have in the house (10 of which were needed for dinner plates).  The night before Thanksgiving, we made the pies and peeled potatoes (we only have one working oven, so we really had to plan out timing).  Basically, we were the Julia Children of post-grad cooking.

Finally, it was Thanksgiving.  We got up, all ready to start the main part of the cooking.  Which led to the next obstacle: DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO A TURKEY IN ORDER TO PREPARE IT FOR THANKSGIVING?!?!  Well, I didn't.  Unfortunately, I now do.  After a couple calls to my mom, first to ask what to do, and then if she was serious, I cleaned out the turkey, then stuffed it full again, and put it in the oven.  We then spent the next few hours preparing potatoes (no nice mixer, all with forks), gravy (which comes either as a powder or in little fish-pellet looking things that you add water to), bread (which technically was past its expiration date, but when you're a post-grad, you make do), corn (which is surprisingly easy to spill everywhere when you're using the wrong sized pot), green bean casserole (which turned out to be good, despite me disliking all of the ingredients), and cranberries (which we special ordered so we could get Ocean Spray cranberries).  One of the better moments was when I noticed one of my British roommates, Adam, poking at the cranberries.  He noticed me, and asked what they were and what you're supposed to do with them.  (No worries--he was a cranberry convert by the end of the meal.)

So it was getting close to dinner time when we realized that we had no idea how to cut a turkey.  Once again, creativity played a role, and the only American male, John, ended up watching a youtube video on his phone about how to carve a turkey--as he carved the turkey.

Unfortunately, by this time, it was after 7, which was the designated "dinnertime".  By 7:15, we had all of the guys in the house standing outside the kitchen, watching us.  Most likely my favorite part of the entire day was when we were almost done cooking, and we had a British guy and an Iranian guy both "singing" the Star Spangled Banner. (I still haven't figured out if they were trying to entertain us while we cooked or to convince us to hurry up.)  After that, they wanted to know if there are any good Thanksgiving songs, and I was almost able to convince them of "Oh Thanksgiving" and "Silent Turkey".  Luckily, dinner was ready not long after.

So the 10 of us crowded around our table that has room for 6, and we all partook in the magical time that is Thanksgiving dinner.  The food was amazing.  The company splendid.  The music not quite American, but lovely just the same.  It really was a fantastic Thanksgiving.  And thanks to the help of Mom and Youtube, none of us got sick with food poisoning!  If you can't spend Thanksgiving at home, this is one extraordinary way to do it!

Bonfire Night

So yesterday was Guy Fawkes' Day, which is the guy who tried to blow up Parliament.  They have a big celebration every year, and do fireworks and stuff like that on the Saturday closest, so today.  I went to it once before with my dad in London, but this was totally different.

First of all, you have to buy tickets to go see the fireworks.  (I know.)  But there is a fair and everything, so we figured it'd be fine.  The fireworks were scheduled to start at 6:45, so we got to the fair at 5:30.  Yeah...  First of all, there was no alcohol.  Normally, that would be okay, but there were two reasons why that was not at all okay in this instance:  first of all, it was cold.  I was wearing my winter jacket, but apparently that wasn't enough.  But, the main reason that alcohol would've helped was the (ahem) talent show going on.  The Oxford Teen Talent Contest Winners were singing.  I was actually offended at some of them.  Here is the list of songs sung (among a few I had never heard, and hope never to again):

-I've Got A Feeling, by the Black Eyed Peas
-To Make You Feel My Love, by Garth Brookes
-I Feel Good, by James Brown (and she kept getting the lyrics wrong)
-I Broke A Window In Your Car
-Use Somebody, by Kings of Leon (this was song as a ballad...yeah...)
-Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams (she also got half the lyrics wrong)
-Rude Boy by Rihanna
-The laugh from "Thriller", which got us all excited, but that was all there was of it
-Halleluja

I can't even begin to describe the pain of listening to these songs, most of which I'm a fan of.  So yeah, alcohol would've been nice.

Anyway, then, finally, at 6:45, we were all really excited and ready.  At 6:55 we were all really excited and ready.  At 7:05, we were all excited, ready, and a little annoyed.  At 7:15, I was cold and ticked off.  FINALLY, at about 7:20, the fireworks started.  Luckily, the fireworks were fantastic.  They were just great.  So that was happy.  But then the other part of Guy Fawkes' Day came into play.

A tradition for the British is to burn replicas of Guy Fawkes.  As in they have little kids build dolls in school and they throw them into bonfires.  Yeah...  Well, in Oxford, they burn a giant wicker woman, and as she burned, her face burned off and became a really creepy mask.  Yeah...  So we stayed for a bit of that, but at that point, I couldn't feel my feet or my hands, so we left to get a drink at a pub.  Unfortunately, by the time we got to a pub, got a drink, and sat down, we were all exhausted.  It is 10:30 right now, and I have uploaded pictures onto facebook and typed this because I refuse to go to bed before 10:30 on a Saturday night.  I have now made it, and can go to sleep.  All in all, though, it was a really...memerable night!!