Thanksgiving x 2 and Reverse Surprise Party ;)

Still fighting off some sort of virus, which has now been compounded by excruciating lower back pain. Apparently, this is a sign that my 27-year-old body can no longer keep up with all these 22 and 23-year-olds I hang out with... Awesome. Had to cancel soccer in the park yesterday because of it, which was really sad. Here's hoping that a couple more days of walking around gingerly like an old woman will make my back good as new again. Because, seriously!

In spite of being hobbled by bodily aches and pains, I managed to cram a lot in this week, including not one but TWO Thanksgivings! They were amazing. The first one, on the actual day of Thanksgiving, was at another assistant's house. Erin, the hostess, had gone all out and special ordered a 10-kilo turkey from her butcher who hired his friend to go out and shoot it on Tuesday. We're talking super healthy, free-range, AMAZING turkey (better have been for the whopping price of 99 EUROS!). Poor little turkey never knew what was coming. I had to babysit before going over so I just brought beverages, but everyone else showed off superior culinary talent. We had the works: turkey, green bean casserole, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce (kind of a miracle since they just don't HAVE cranberries here), cornbread, mashed potatoes, the most delicious sweet potato casserole I've ever tasted (made by my roommate), baguettes (of course), pumpkin pie, apple pie, and strawberry shortcake. 

It was a true feast. And miraculously, 20 of us fit in Erin's living room! It was mostly Americans with three Canadians and one French guy. Delish.

The second Thanksgiving was at my friend Jasmine's apartment. She did the assistant program last year and is going to school in Lyon this year. She's a vegetarian so no turkey, but we had another fabulous spread. 

Three quiches, some sort of amazing rice-sausage-stuffing-like entree (made by a Brit for his second Thanksgiving ever), mashed potatoes (made by yours truly--first time ever and they were delicious), salad, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, potato salad, pecan pie, apple pie, sweet potato pie, two chocolate cakes, and, last but not least, Sara, Alicia, and I unveiled our pumpkin pie that we slaved over all day Friday. And by slaved over, I mean that Sara cooked the actual pumpkin and beat it into submission before bringing it over to my apartment where we threw in a little of this, a little of that, and hoped for the best. 

It was seriously delicious. Not sure I can ever go back to the pumpkin-in-a-can pumpkin pies...

Before Thanksgiving feast #2, Sara and I went over to check out the amazing Lyon Christmas market that just opened. Up until Christmas, this square just south of the city center is overtaken by a bunch of little booths selling food and drinks and gifts. Everything is decorated with lights and there's a big Christmas tree, and it's basically like walking into the North Pole...without the cold and snow. So cute. 

I didn't quite capture it in my pictures, but I have to go back anyway since I didn't eat any of the foods there considering we were about to go stuff our faces.

So in between the big Thanksgiving celebrations, Rachel and I threw a surprise birthday party for Ryan, another assistant whose birthday was on Thanksgiving and who wasn't sure how or where to celebrate. The catch is that he was over to lesson plan last weekend, and we were talking about it and we all concocted the surprise birthday party together so he was in on it. I mean, it's true that a lot of the time it's hard to plan surprise parties because you don't know what the person wants or who they want to invite or if the whole thing will work. This way, Ryan helped us with all of those details, came over early, and hid in the closet in our living room. We made everyone gather around the closet to surprise him when he came through the main door and then he popped out from behind them through a sign that Rachel had ingeniously hung across the closet so no one would open it up. It was hilarious. I only got an aftermath picture because I was too busy peeing my pants when he actually popped out. 

Things got a little stressful beforehand when everyone wanted to hide in my room, which wouldn't have been nearly as fun. But it worked and everyone was super surprised. I highly recommend reverse surprise parties for all occasions. :) And the rest of the party--our first in the apartment--was a huge success. We had drinks and snacks and a million crepes with different toppings. 

We even found a boxed chocolate cake with HAPPY BIRTHDAY candles so we could sing to Ryan. And the cake wasn't half bad! Looks like I still have my party-throwing touch here in France. :)

Not much else of note. Had another lazy Sunday yesterday. I actually spent most of it putting together this huge PowerPoint for a presentation I have to give on Thursday morning. Two of the teachers want me to take the whole hour to talk to their classes about the "Holiday Season in the U.S." meaning Halloween, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, and New Year's. I'm a little overwhelmed but am crossing my fingers that my PowerPoint works because if not, it's going to be one serious snooze-fest.

To avoid planning for my painful 2pm Monday class (blah), I made another quiche last night like the one I made before. I added mushrooms this time, and I think it's even better! Okay, since I have to go actually teach the brutal class in two hours, maybe I should figure out what I'm going to be doing... Wish me luck!

P.S. I got a successful haircut in France, in FRENCH, last Wednesday!!!! I'm really not good at haircuts and put them off as long as possible, even in the U.S., because I never know what I really want and am always petrified something will go horribly wrong and I'll come out bald. But I went to a cute little place right near my apartment, and the woman performed a miracle. She kept asking me what I wanted, and I kept telling her I trusted her and she definitely deserved that trust! Not sure you can really tell in the pictures above, but she cut off a good 4 inches, if not more, and layered it around my face really nicely. It even looks good after being slept on and not having been blow-dried or styled! My kind of haircut. :)