An Israeli Thanksgiving

Shalom! Ma Nishma?

(Hey, what's up?)

So...The next few posts are going to be a fast track of what I did over the past month...considering the fact that I never updated this thing. oops.

The night before Thanksgiving was my friend Chandler's 21st birthday.  She chose to celebrate at none other than the infamous Rak Basar restaurant in the German colony of Haifa. The name of the restaurant explains everything:

Just. Meat.

They have every type of meat you could ever imagine and you order it by the weight. This is rather complicated due to the fact that I don't think in kilograms but whatever. It was delicious. The second you walk in the door they hand you a glass of red wine and for five dollars more, you can drink unlimited throughout the night.  I enjoyed my first piece of Israeli cow and it was a great birthday celebration. The next  day was of course, Thanksgiving!

Now. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year (Don't judge me). While I knew it was going to fall short of my parent's amazing cooking, it was pretty fun. During the day, a group of the American international students and I played a game of "soccer" aka "anything goes but let's do something that resembles soccer." It was a blast, and we themed it nothing other than,  North vs. South. Everyone knows the South is the best. 

Because of the pure epicness of this occassion, it has now been turned into a Thursday tradition among the international school. Every week we theme it something different.

That evening I went to class. Now, this is clearly an American phenomenon. Class...on Thanksgiving...what?? However, somehow I made it through the class (only on the knowledge of the dinner-to-come). That night, as an international school, Americans and other students alike, joined together in a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving meal. I will give Israel props for trying hard to get it right. We had turkey, mashed potatoes (they were yellow, I mean...what?) green beans, bread, stuffing and apple pie. Now, the turkey was a little raw and it wasn't green bean casserole, but it was nice to get together and share a little piece of home.  I got to skype my family right as they were about to eat, and as much as I wanted to jump through the screen and eat their food, it was amazing to spend time with them on the holiday.  It was also Doug's birthday, and skyping him was just what I needed. Thanksgiving was a success here in Israel and I cannot wait to see how an Israeli Christmas will be like.

P.S: Israeli's have the hardest time pronouncing the "th" sound in English. It's quite funny.

-Stefani