Thanksgiving!

Michelle, Leesa and I celebrated Thanksgiving last night (Monday) together at Panetlis' -- we had an interesting time trying to explain what kind of holiday it actually was... I think we at least got across the idea that you say thank-you a lot, you see your family, and you eat a lot of food.

It was a fabulous dinner -- I had the "Spesial in Oven" spaghetti that I've been meaning to try FOREVER and we all splurged for dessert. Pantelis suggested the "broenies" (brownies) because he had a whole bunch (and he closes up for the winter in just a couple of weeks! Nooooo!!) aaand so we had super-discounted brownies (€3 instead of €5.50!) with LOTS of ice cream. The man knows how to treat his most loyal customers ;)


I ended up staying a little longer after Michelle and Leesa left so that I could use the Internet to skype with Brian for a while... Just as I was finishing that up, however, it started to POUR rain!

It'd been raining most of the afternoon and since at that point we'd been in town getting groceries, I actually ended up walking back to our apartments in my bare feet (the roads were like rivers and I didn't to destroy my birkenstocks). That said, I was NOT looking forward to being soaked a second time in one day and even my jacket wouldn't be enough to keep my laptop protected with rain that hard.

Pantelis saw me looking at the rain and came over to convince me that I shouldn't leave until it calmed down for a bit. Instead, I helped him and his mom clear the candles off the tables and move the outside ones in and outside of the rain. A little while later, an American lady who'd been there visiting with Julia (Pantelis' mom), offered to give me a ride back so that I could avoid being drenched. Whew. Turns out, she and her husband live here for six months every year! They're heading back to the US on Nov 6.


ANYWAY.

Because of the rain, we didn't excavate this morning. We met at 1pm instead and began some cataloging work with the pottery we've already excavated. There is so much to learn!

After that was over, I went back to Pantelis to help him use eBay to purchase that Citizen diving watch he wanted to buy... I figured it'd be a lot of work setting up PayPal for him (he didn't really understand why he should use it, but the seller of the watch he wanted only took PayPal or cash on delivery...) AND he couldn't remember his own eBay login information (apparently he uses eBay usually to purchase otherwise expensive polo shirts) SO I offered to use my account to buy it for him.

He thought that was a great idea so that's what we did. Fun times.

He was giving me the euros (we calculated the conversion online) just as Geoffrey (prof) walked in... He was a little confused about why Pantelis was paying me instead of the other way around this time and found the situation hilarious when I explained.


Tonight we're celebrating Thanksgiving again as a big group -- we're not doing a traditional dinner (we have no access to turkeys or decent ovens) but we are doing a potluck! Woot!

I tried my hand at apple crisp... I'm hoping it turned out ok. I mean... It LOOKS ok. And if nothing else, my room smells incredible. But I've never made apple crisp before and the little ovens we have here don't have degrees... they just have the numbers 1-8 to indicate how hot it goes. I also didn't have any real measuring tools. I made do with a clear glass... at least the ingredients should be proportionally correct. Meh. Will give a final update after the real test -- EVERYONE.

Oh, speaking of dinner. I gotta run! It starts in 15 minutes...

Much love!