If Meena can’t go to Thanksgiving, bring Thanksgiving to Meena!

food and friends
Last weekend while traveling, I got really sick: fever, chills, fatigue—the whole nine yards. The flight back was awful; I was colder than I’d ever been, even bundled up in a hoodie. I was exhausted—barely able to walk from the terminal to the taxi stand. I fell asleep in the cab on my way to my apartment. The fatigue lasted all week. I missed Spanish class Monday, left halfway through, and didn’t go again Wednesday or Thursday. Basically I didn’t leave my room save for the occasional trip to the bathroom or kitchen—it was awful. Tuesday, facebook alerted me that 6 of my Madrid friends were attending some thanksgiving potluck. I clicked it to see more, and I found out the party was in my apartment! I’d been sleeping so much, I hadn’t really talked to my roommates. I made it out to the kitchen and asked my roommate what the plans were, and she laughed and told me she wasn’t going to invite me to a party in my own apartment! I laughed too—the high tech world is kind of ridiculous.

Even though dinner wasn’t until ten that night, friends started showing up around five to use our kitchen. Since a lot of our friends are living in homestays, we had a pre-thanksgiving cooking party. I wasn’t planning to cook anything but I got into the spirit of things and since I wasn’t contagious, I decided to run down to the store. I ended up throwing together some delicious yet easy to make oreo cream cheese truffles. I put them in the fridge to cool.

Mid way through cooking, people got impatient and started snacking on the truffles straight out of the fridge; they were a hit! Once everything was ready we moved it all to the living room and put it out buffet style. We threw together all the plates and silverware we had in the apartment and began to eat. We had everything: from the turkey and the corn to the sweet potato pie and the stuffing…I was thrilled—the mashed potatoes tasted just as good as they do every year.

Madrid is a really cool place, but I think I’m pretty much ready to go home. Therefore, I really appreciated having a fun thanksgiving in Madrid with friends, even if I couldn’t be home to celebrate thanksgiving with my family.

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