Thanksgiving prep

Thursday was mostly spent on food preparations for tomorrow night's feast. I did call my mom and sister in New Mexico to say happy Thanksgiving some time before they were going to eat. In the morning we went to the butcher to pick up the whole  turkey (8.1 kilograms), plus four huge turkey legs. He was very pleasant and helpful. We will go there again.

When we got to the Institute with a ton of things to carry in, the elevator was already partially occupied with a mop and bucket, which was strange. It was apparently from a guy washing the (marble) stairs.

So my wife fit in with most of the stuff, while I walked up a couple of floors. It's tight enough when the elevator is empty!

During the afternoon and evening, my wife worked on sweet potatoes, stuffing, as well as cooking the turkey legs and planning for tomorrow's logistics.

Sweet potatoes coming out, turkey legs going in

Modern art: stuffing fixings, laptop, and Nutella

We taught the advanced English class tonight, and my wife was the star, showing them our Thanksgiving food prep and explaining how it all works. So many things are unknown here, such as cranberries and sweet potatoes. The class was quite interested in it all. In talking about Thanksgiving in America, we also somehow got onto the topic of sports: first American football, then soccer, and baseball. Italy just got eliminated from the next World Cup qualifying tournament, which is a huge embarrassment and disappointment for everyone here -- it hasn't happened since the 1950s.

I worked a lot on my talk for Sunday and a couple of upcoming lessons, in between doing some dishes and odd jobs for the boss of the kitchen. We only had a few kids in during the day -- Thursdays are generally slow, but it's actually nice to get to visit with the kids one-on-one.