Art of Travel: My First Thanksgiving Away From Home

This was my first Thanks- giving that I had ever spent away from home. I knew from the moment that I applied to go abroad Fall semester that this was a day that I would have to face sooner or later but it didn’t make it any easier, to be away from my family, friends and traditions of this holiday that I love so much.

Anyways, knowing that this was going to be a rough time for me, I decided well in advanced to make myself as busy as possible so that I wouldn’t have much time to think about missing real Thanksgiving in the U.S. This included a full day of errands to run, and class to attend. The day was to end with a Traditional Thanksgiving dinner, as promised by NYU in Paris, atop the Eiffel Tower and the next was to begin with a trip to Prague with two of my girlfriends for the remainder of the weekend.

I have to say, the entire weekend ended up being a great success! The dinner was absolutely wonderful and I was really impressed with NYU. They basically rented out the entire restaurant (the one that is on the first level, not the one at the very top) and somehow managed to get them to cook us a French version of Thanksgiving dinner. The food was great although perhaps not quite traditional! I sat at a huge table with my all of my closest friends in the program and enjoyed delicious wine and food.

Although the dinner was not the same as being at home with my family, I came to realize that I was having a once in a lifetime experience and I ended up having a wonderful time. How many other people can say that they ate their Thanksgiving dinner on the Eiffel Tower?

The next morning, my two friends and I left bright and early to go to Prague and we had a wonderful time. This was the first trip I went on outside of France, so I was really excited about it and Prague was the perfect place to pick. I felt like because it is a small city, especially relative to Paris, it was easy to see the sites get a general feel of the city within the time constraints of the weekend. Not to say that our days weren’t jam-packed but this just made for a really fun weekend and just the type of distraction that I was looking for!