Two Thanksgivings

It is the time for American Thanksgiving, and of course this isn’t celebrated in Hungary. We got to have two Thanksgivings this year—one with the Fulbrighters and one with our friends the Abels.

The Spesserts hosted the Fulbright Thanksgiving in their lovely apartment. They live right by the Danube and have a terrace that looks out to the river. At night you can see the lights of the Buda castle. There were a lot of Fulbrighters there, and the kids were so excited to see that their friends Gabriel and Juliette were able to come! The Spesserts set up an area in their bedroom with coloring, a tablet with movies just for the kids. The adults congregated in the living area, which is totally adorable. The whole apartment looks like it has been plucked out of another century. We brought blue cheese stuffed tomatoes and some wine (of course) because everything we thought of to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner we couldn’t find here in Budapest! They must have been available though because we had stuffing, sweet potato casserole, turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, brussel sprouts, and even a pumpkin pie! It was delicious and I ate entirely too much. After dinner we went around the room answering specific questions about things we were thankful for—people, places, and experiences. This is a great group of faculty and students, and I will miss these new friends we have made once we go back to the states.

Our second Thanksgiving was on the actual Thanksgiving Day at our friends the Abels. Steve works at the US embassy and it was just chance that they were stationed in Hungary while we are here. It has been great getting to connect with this lovely family, and fascinating learning about the life of a diplomat. It almost (but not quite) makes me want to drop everything and change careers! They have three kids, and there were two other families there. One family also worked for the US embassy but through the military and had two kids, and the other lived in Vienna working through the military for the embassy and had four kids. Between the four families, there were eight adults and twelve kids! The Abels have a large house with four stories (including the basement), so the kids found plenty of places to play. They also have three guinea pigs which were almost always out of the cages and on someone’s lap. This Thanksgiving dinner was just as good as the last one with turkey and ham, mashed and sweet potatoes, stuffing, several veggies, rolls, corn pudding, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. It was just like an American Thanksgiving with friends, family, and food!