A Tale of Two Turkeys...

This weekend, Zack and I helped to sustain the turkey industry in France by partaking twice (gobble, gobble) of this American holiday with French friends.

Friday night, we had an intimate gathering chez Charles & Debra with four other French guests. We contributed a green bean casserole and pecan pie. The evening ended with a quite competitive game of Nertz (card game).





Today (Sunday), we had a not-so-intimate gathering with about 70 other francophone and anglophone guests who are members of the English library downtown. The dinner was a "thank you" to its volunteers (I lead a conversation group on Saturdays and Zack does tech support). It was a pretty authentic meal but with some French flair. We began with champagne, then the soup course, then the main course (with wine), then the cheese/salad course, and finally finished up with dessert and coffee.

Before the nearly 3 hour meal, to work up our appetites we went on a two hour walk through cornfields, apple orchards and pine forests, and we met some really nice chaps from England, Ireland and Scotland. There was also a married couple from Appalachian State there that Zack got to talk with briefly. We rode with an extremely nice woman named Beatrice, who, having been to the US only once, spent a week in Raleigh, of all places, since Raleigh is a sister city with Compiegne (not sure where that is). Quelle coincidence!

Both were very lively Thanksgivings. We are thankful for the opportunities to call our families back home, to meet new friends, and to learn different ways of celebrating one of our favorite holidays.