The Trans-European Bethel-Wuppertal Thanksgiving Extravaganza

This week I had several friends visiting me for Thanksgiving. The first to arrive was on . . .

TUESDAY:
My friend Brad who is now studying abroad in Derry, Northern Ireland arrived at the Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof. We were able to catch up that night, and I was able to give Brad a little German culture.

WEDNESDAY:
I went to Dusseldorf with Brad. We saw what would have been a sunset on the Rhine, but it was too cloudy. That was really probably about 4:30 or so. (The sun sets earlier here than in Kansas.) We took a little walk along the Rhine, and went into the Altstadt in Dusseldorf. "Alt" means old and "stadt" means city. The Altstadt is a pedestrian zone in the middle of Dusseldof along the Rhine, with lots of narrow stone paved streets that don't intersect at right angles. Right now the streets are packed with booths for the Christmas Market there. During the evening we visited various shops, breweries. We ate at an Asian restaurant, I think it was Thai and Chinese. Brad found an inedible vegetable in his food, but other than that we were satisfied with our food.

THURSDAY (Thanksgiving):
Because I was supposed to have class, I woke up at a little after 7am and left Brad to sleep. When I got to the classroom, a different woman than our normal teacher came in. She told us our teacher was sick, and couldn't come today. She gave us an assignment, and sent us on our way. I went back to my room and slept some more, then at about 10:30 we both got up. Charles, the friend who also visited me near the end of October, showed up that afternoon. At about 6pm we went to Tobias' apartment for a Thanksgiving meal. (Tobias is a native Wuppertaler who did a year at Bethel. He is also the one who picked me up from the train station when I arrived in Wuppertal.) There we met with many other Wuppertalers who were exchange students at Bethel, and several recently graduated or current Bethel students who are now in Germany: Kate (who visited me in Berlin) Bryce (whom I visited for the election), Jon, and Rosie. The meal, which was finally ready at about 9:30pm, consisted of many of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Tobias had to special order two whole Turkeys. Kate pulled out the innards herself. Kate also artfully decorated pies. Needless to say, we ate a lot.

Toby, Kate, Turkey

FRIDAY:
Brad and Charles stayed in my room the previous night, and the others stayed at Toby's. I decided not to go to class on Friday. (It would be a free day at Bethel, right?) Instead we slept off the turkey, and at about noon, we went back to Toby's for more. After eating too much again, we decided we would go to Dusseldorf to visit the Christmas market. Rosie and I were invited to some American-German Thanksgiving dinner by some former Bethel-Wuppertal people. We were supposed to meet a couple at the Golden Tulip hotel in Wuppertal at 6:30pm, so Rosie and I would have to leave Dusseldorf early. There was a train from Dusseldorf to Wuppertal that arrived at 6:30. Rosie said the hotel was close by the train station, so I figured we could take that train.

On our way back, the train was late by 5 minutes. and it turned out that Rosie didn't really know exactly where the hotel was. We spent about 15 minutes walking and trying to find it. We finally found it, but there was no sign of the couple we were supposed to meet there. I asked the people at the front desk if they know anything about the meal that was supposed to happen, thinking that we could possibly meet them there. The people at the front desk said that they knew someone was expecting us, but they weren't in the lobby. They called the room of the people we were supposed to meet, but nobody was there. I was fairly frustrated at this point. We weren't able to find them, and I had no cell phone information from the couple. All we could assume is that they had already left to this Thanksgiving celebration. I eventually just left the couple a note with the front desk with my cell phone number, and left. I felt bad. I felt like we had stood these people up who were nice enough to invite us to this meal.

When I got back to my room, I sent the couple a very apologetic e-mail. I also found a phone number that they had sent me in a previous e-mail, and called it. There was no answer, so I am not sure if it was their cell phone. I left another apologetic message there.

Later on that evening the rest of the people came back from Dusseldorf and we went to a bar where Luna, one of the Wuppertal exchange students at Bethel from last year, was working. While we were there, I received a text message from the couple, saying they were sorry they missed us.

Brad had a plan to leave Wuppertal at midnight to get to Frankfurt in time to catch his 7am flight, so it was just Charles and I that slept in my room on Friday night.

SATURDAY:
The remaining visitors met for Breakfast at a place called Pino's. Then we bid Kate farewell at the train station. At this point it was just Bryce, Jon, Toby, Charles, and I. At a loss for something to do, we rode the Schwebebahn (the public suspension rail in Wuppertal) from one side to the other. The rest of the day was pretty laid back with few plans. In the evening I went to Solingen to a going-away party for one of my friends here in Wuppertal. My thought was that I would meet back up with the remaining Bethel people after that party. I got back at about 11:30. The others were still at Toby's. I got on a bus that I thought would take me to where Toby lived, but I was going the wrong direction. I got off after two stops and walked back to the train station. I called Toby, and he said that the people there were ready to go to bed. I spoke a bit with Charles, and he said he would meet me at the train station. Unfortunately, Charles missed the last bus back to the train station, and had to instead wait 45 minutes for the S-Bahn at a small train station near Toby's part of Wuppertal. I wasn't able to know this because Charles has no cell phone, so I waited about an hour for Charles in the train station.

SUNDAY (today):
All the remaining Bethelites left Wuppertal, bringing an end to the Bethel-Wuppertal Thanksgiving Reunion saga.

I also made a soup that didn't taste exactly the same as all the other soups I had made, and it also didn't taste bad! That was mildly exciting. I think the key may have been that I fried the onions and garlic in butter and a little bit of sugar before I added the liquid and the rest of the soup ingredients.


I hope all your Thanksgivings were wonderful as well!
--Austin