Thanksgiving was our first official holiday away from home. While we have lived in different cities from our respective families for several years, we have always had great friends to share this special holiday with (special shout out to Ray and Sally, Jade and Mike for the great times!). This year, to be honest, Thanksgiving was not on the forefront of our thoughts. Ben is busy with his new job and I am busy with Danish and general stuff. Not to mention the fact that we do not have the appropriate cooking utensils to prepare most of the Thanksgiving special dishes. AND....where would we get a turkey over here? Not at the Føtex or the Netto!
Then we received an email from a group of lost souls - or should I say Canadian expats in Denmark announcing the planning of a large Thanksgiving celebration for all the Canadians in Copenhagen! Eureka! Let me back track a bit though....
I joined a group called AllCanucks back in August. This group for Canadian expats in Denmark is a catalyst for meeting other Canadians in Copenhagen through a series of events hosted throughout the year. These events can include pub nights, comedy nights (In English!), and general assistance on working/living/being in Denmark. Ben and I had yet to participate in an event until we received the Thanksgiving email....
For the small cost of 100 kroner each (about $20 Cdn) we would be provided with an all you can eat/all you can drink Thanksgiving celebration! Oh - and we had to bring our special thanksgiving side dish as well. I chose to bring the ever important dinner rolls while Ben (aka Julia Childs) wanted to make his famous scalloped potatoes. The scalloped potatoes went off without a hitch. Dinner rolls on the other hand were a little more complicated. I decided to wait until the Sunday of the dinner to purchase them. I wanted to get really nice dinner rolls so started my search off at the bakery...that is until I realized that each dinner roll cost upwards of $1 Cdn. Each! I was not going to pay $35 for dinner rolls! So I decided to walk down to the big grocery store - the Føtex. 15 minutes later I was outside the closed store (apparently 'Shopping Sundays' means that this grocery store is only open on the first Sunday of the month). Can you imagine a Loblaws being closed on a Sunday? So I walked all the way back home to check out the small, Netto grocery store near my house (I like to call it the ghetto Netto) where I was successfully able to purchase 36 dinner rolls pre-packaged for 8 bucks! Far too much effort for dinner rolls.
So off we went with the dinner rolls and scalloped potatoes to the Thanksgiving dinner. We are happy to report that the Canadians abroad are just as welcoming as Canadians back home. It was great to chat with people in English and learn more from the Canadians that have lived here for some time. Apparently canned pumpkin is quite difficult to come by here (in retrospect I am lad we did not offer to make pumpkin pie!). It was a real treat to have pumpkin pie made from scratch at the dinner though. Turkey is also difficult to come by and has to be pre-ordered. Apparently there used to be an American lady who bred and supplied all the turkey for Denmark. While it is uncertain whether she is stil operating, apparently most of the turkey now is brought in from Germany. I guess that means I will not be having a Christmas turkey in December unless I find out how to order this bird!
All in all, we had a great time and met some great people I am sure we will be seeing in the near future. Thanksgiving in Denmark = Success!
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