Sunday, December 6, 2009

Fall fun

Thanksgiving is always a little different overseas. For one thing-no one has off on the Thursday or Friday so it is hard to do a meal on the Thursday. SO this year we went with Friday night-that way we did not have to rush or gorging on food! One nice thing about Brussels is that I was able to get everything I needed for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. One problem is that apartment fills us at about 6 and we were planning on 12 AND i do not have a real oven-just a toaster oven so that would make it impossible to cook a turkey! So we had the feast at my friend's Fiona and Rasmus. They have an amazing flat with lots of space and a huge table.
I went over about 12:30 and began the preparations. Fiona had already begun the decorations and they were gorgeous. We spent the afternoon, baking, cooking, chatting, looking at wedding photos! It was a fun afternoon. Then around 6:45 the guests started arriving. It was an interesting mix-of the 12 only 3 were america, and only 1 other had ever had thanksgiving. So it was fun to introduce them to the feast!! By the end everyone could barely move and had begun to sink into their turkey induced comas! here we are at the gorgeous table.
One of my favorite things about europe and Brussels are the Chrsitmas markets. Every year on the first week of advent the markets open up all over. Brussels has a really fun market with an ice skating rink and ferris wheel. So for part of church on Sunday our group decided to go ice skating. Here I am on the crowded rink. They do not have zambonies(not sure how to spell that) so the ice gets REALLY bad which makes it a fun challenge to stay on your feet:)
Here is a picture of the rink with the wheel in the back- and the market stalls are all around the rink. Again- anybody wanna come for a visit?:)