An American Thanksgiving in Bangkok

This past weekend I had the fortunate opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with my Fulbright family in Bangkok. Fulbright flew us out on Wednesday, and many of us stayed an extra night and left on Sunday. We got to stay at the All Seasons Hotel (a nice change from our "houses" in the various provinces of Thailand), enjoy high-speed internet, hot showers, and an American breakfast with REAL, UNLIMITED AMOUNTS of COFFEE EVERY MORNING :-D. It was fabulous (although it should be noted that I have internet and hot water at my house here in Chiang Rai). We feasted on Western food each day as if it were our last day on earth. This also meant concluding each dinner with our routine trip to Swensens. Yummm.

On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we spent the morning doing some community service at an elementary school on the outskirts of Bangkok. The students were absolutely adorable (spoke pretty good English for their age), and greeted us with a hula-hoop dance to a popular Thai song. We helped paint their recreation center and playground, and did some gardening. I chose to help paint since that activity was in the shady (it was wayy too hot to be out under the blazing sun doing some gardening). After painting, we had a delicious lunch (coconut ice cream included), and in the afternoon we read English books to the students.  It was nice to do some service work on Thanksgiving; I always used to talk about doing something similar back home, like volunteering at a soup kitchen during the holidays, but never got around to it.

For dinner, we were invited to the Vice President's house (VP of Fulbright-Thailand) for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I had been looking forward to this for weeks. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, Caesar salad, AND pumpkin pie! It was DIVINE! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, so I was SO happy to have Thanksgiving food ON Thanksgiving this year. I was also thankful that I got to spend the holiday with people that I love and care about: my Fulbright family! The other ETAs and I have become really close in such a short amount of time (we have truly become each others' support system here), and the Fulbright staff is phenomenal, they take such good care of us! So although I didn't get to spend the holiday at home in the States (and it was my first time being away from my family on Thanksgiving), I'm happy I had great people to celebrate with. Without my wonderful Fulbright family, or the American food, I think the day would have been really difficult to get through, because I would have been reminded of how far away from my family and friends I am. So, this year, I am thankful for the wonderful support system I have here in Thailand. I am thankful that I made my dream a reality; I wanted to go abroad and to teach English, and I did. I am thankful for the new friends I have made here. And, I am thankful for my family and friends back home who continue to support me, even though I am so far away.