Canadian Thanksgiving!

So just got back from a long weekend/school day! Unbeknownst to me, my cell phone ran out of battery life and died on Saturday. Because I didn't use it as an alarm clock, I didn't notice and didn't bother recharging it. Sunday morning around 11AM, I realized I needed to recharge it and plugged it in...I had messages! Nuts! Sure enough, it was Melissa on Saturday inviting me over to their place to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. They got a 10 kilo turkey (about 20 pounds), made a ton of dressing, mashed potatoes, veggies, and had two pumpkin pies. I was so sad! I immediately called to let her know I wasn't ignoring her invitation, I just never got it. We chatted and she mentioned that they still had tons of leftovers and would I like to come over and possibly stay overnight and drive to school with her? YES!!! I quickly packed for an overnight and as quickly as possible, walked/ran the 2 km to the train station. Melissa and her husband Cristoph live in Munich so I needed to catch a train to a main station and then transfer to a local train. The local train only ran at certain times on Sunday so I had to catch it just right.

I had brought my laptop so I could watch the 12PM online church service from Lifechurch.tv and I was super excited to find out that Andy Stanley was the guest pastor for the weekend! My 40 minute train trip to Munich-Pasing was uneventful, but fun with the sermon.

Thankfully, I hit the schedule just right and only had to wait 10 minutes for the S-bahn to Melissa and Cristoph's house. Cristoph met me on the street and we headed off to their lovely home!

We spent the afternoon chatting while washing up dishes from Saturday's feast, stopped to have tea and pumpkin pie and then generally just lounged around. The weather was turning quite cold and a huge front was moving in so Cristoph turned on the heat and we huddled on the couch. Eventually, it was time for dinner so Melissa threw in all the leftovers into one pan and cooked it...Yum!

We ate the whole pan between the three of us and it was absolutely delicious. It's so funny how familiar tastes from home mean so much.

For dessert we had chocolates that people had brought over on Saturday and listened to several recordings of Stuart McLean who is the Garrison Keillor of Canada. I just about died! It was hilarious!

After that, we got distracted finding funny videos on Youtube, and before you know it, it was almost midnight. I stayed in their guest room in the attic and listened to the storm blowing across the area, whipping trees all around.

By the morning it was super cold. We bundled up best we could and headed out onto the Autobahn for a morning commute! Truth be told, I've never gone 180 km per hour before, but I did today! We made it to school in plenty of time, but the rest of the school day was extremely cold and rainy. Thankfully, Alke gave me a ride home so I didn't have to take the bus/tram.

So there you have it, my first Canadian Thanksgiving. Now there is talk of doing it all again for American Thanksgiving. Woohoo!