Molly and I flew into Athens, Greece from Rome. We settled into our hostel about a 5 minute walk from the Acropolis.....Because it is slow season, and the weather is only a lovely 70 degrees, we got an upgrade in our room to a 4 bed tiny apartment with a little kitchen, private bath and TV. It was sweet! Right next to a laundry mat and the hostel bar, it could only have been better if a Haggens was across the street.
Arriving at dusk is really not ideal. No time to walk around and see where you are or get your bearings at the start. But we managed to find a greek take-out, self serve restaurant and overloaded on fresh greek salad (with a whole slab of feta cheese on top), grilled veggies, moussaka and something like moussaka with the same ingredients but another name. We brought half of it back to our little refridgerator.
Molly and I had talked about cooking a Thanksgiving dinner and inviting people from the hostel to make a small party. The problem was the hostel kitchen was under remodel and our studio had a microwave and a stop top, but no oven. Hmmmmmm. I love challenges like that. We started inviting people that night, basically going thru a secret interview process before extending the invitation to dinner in our suite. By morning, we had about 10 people coming, mostly Americans but a young man from Belgium and a women from Vietnam. Everyone was so excited! We had to get our act together quick.
I found a bakeless pumpkin pie recipe online. I was going to buy some stovetop stuffing and precooked chickens and shove the stovetop mix inside, stringing them up with dental floss. We hoped for yams and marshmellows, green beans and mashed potatoes. When we found a grocery store, hardly a Haggens, we quickly moved to plan B. No pumpkin to be found, no stovetop stuffing, no yams, no marshmellows, no precooked chickens. Instead, I settled for lots of olives (plentiful, many varieties and cheap), little cocktail hotdogs, instant mashed potatoes, salad fixings and greenbeans. Molly got ingredients for her famous no-bake cookies.
I went back to the take-out restaurant from the night before and ordered up a couple roasted chickens, after haggling back on and forth over price and timing.....I agreed to come back and pick them up at 7:00. Our guests had all offered to bring things too, so I had delegated the dessert, bread and drinks to them.
We ended up with so much food, a wonderful group of people, lots of laughter and kindness going around. We all went around and introduced ourselves, as not everybody knew everybodies names (and I still don't know) and we also shared one thing, from the day, that we were thankful for. For Chou and Wem, non-Americans, it was their first Thanksgiving. We had a soldier on leave from Iraq. We had a half greek American learning her heritage. We had a Columbian living in the US. We had a radiologist, cancer survivor from Texas. We had two Christian Science travelers. We had an American who had relocated to Egypt. Quite the mix and with all the various backgrounds and differences, an amazing night that none of us will forget for a long time.
As chief organizer and hostess, Molly running a close second, I was presented with fresh flowers (complete with vase) and a bottle of Ouzo......to be shared with the rest of the group in souvenier Greek God shot glasses. The group cleaned up, some of us played backgammon, and late in the evening everyone headed down to the bar for Karaoke. I was so proud of my daughter that night singing Mamba #5.
Lesson learned that night was that people crave people and that is human nature. Also learned you can have great fun with people who could have remained perfect strangers, it just takes opening the door. It is amazing such a diverse group could come together to celebrate food, friendship and share knowledge about traveling and life experiences. Maybe it was a bit like the Indians and the Pilgrims.
