Thanksgiving

Well, I don't think there is anything quite like spending a holiday in a foreign country.  On a day to day basis you don't think all that much about how you are in a different country.  There are, of course, the little hassles that you don't have back home (foraging for food at grocery stores the size of a 7-11--or in fact buying some of your groceries at 7-11; walking everywhere instead of hopping in your car; etc.), but nothing hammers it in that you are far from home like spending a holiday somewhere else.  Both boys had Tuesday off this week (some sort of national holiday),but they both had school on Thursday.  We were invited to a friend's home for Thanksgiving dinner (she has an oven!!!) and I was going to make the pies there. It turned out okay, but it took many trips to many stores to gather the necessary pie supplies. And, even then I couldn't get Crisco (although one of the stores did have blocks of lard) so I had to use butter (I looked up an online recipe).  Our friend is Irish but married to an American (thus the Thanksgiving meal) and the dinner had people from all over--Argentinians, Americans, Filipinos, Irish, British, and Japanese (and maybe a few from places I didn't list!).  It was funny to see the Argentinians taste the pumpkin pie. :)  In Japan, pies (like most cakes and other desserts) are not as sweet as in America.  It was sort of funny to the Japanese taste the pies, too. At any rate, it was a fun dinner, but also sort of sad.  It made us all miss home to be spending Thanksgiving so far away from our own oven.

It was also sad to come back to our apartment.  I think I may have mentioned it earlier, but we have a terrible water problem. The windows have condensation as do several of the walls and the ceiling in some places. We wipe them down, keep towels around them, try to dry things up with the heaters. But to no avail. The curtains, our clothes, our bedding all stay damp.  Mold has begun to grow in several spots and on one set of curtains despite my efforts at bleaching the affected areas. Finally, on Thanksgiving morning the landlady came by to investigate the issue. She said she has not had the problem but that she also does not use any heat in the apartment. She asked if we could just live without heat this winter. We said no. So, she's looking into getting a dehumidifier for us.  Let's hope it works before we are all waterlogged!