New Zealand, of course, doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving (and doesn’t seem to understand that turkey is a delectable and delicious food!) but us Americans banded together to celebrate – and a bunch of Kiwis joined in!
Conor, a Kiwi student the year above me, started things off by making punch.
It looked pretty yummy! (My stomach doesn’t really do alcohol so I avoided it, but it was gorgeous.)
These are mayo-free deviled eggs. I couldn’t eat them but they disappeared really quickly.
On the left, Sasha, American PhD student and maker of deviled eggs; Alana, a Kiwi film student and volunteer firefighter, is smiling at the camera.
On the left, Jean, a Canadian PhD candidate about to graduate (no, don’t go!!! Jean is incredibly lovely and supportive) and Sasha, who is awesome but has a strange hatred of condiments (hence the mayo-free eggs.)
Our lovely, $150 NZD turkey (+ shipping!!), fresh out of the oven. It was so delicious!
There was also some lighter fare and plenty of cider, beer, and wine.
Emma and Kat snapping the wishbone: American students the year above me, they were the amazing hosts of this dinner. Emma’s masterpiece was the turkey, and Kat’s was amazing pies and cranberry sauce.
Emma’s on the left, and Kat’s on the right. It took them about five tries to snap the wishbone. Major props to them for organizing and hosting a 25+ person Thanksgiving!
And Kat was the winner! Behind her are happy classmates (all Kiwis, actually.) I made green beans, mashed potatoes with my grandma’s recipe (the best mashed papas in the world), and vanilla ice cream.*
*my kind mother bought me an ice cream machine because I had a mini-breakdown about the ice cream here. It’s very different from the ice cream at home and ice cream is my favorite indulgence. Yum!!!
Adventures with Rachel 
What a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’ll take more of a look around your blog as I get time. I can see you’ve done posts about Dunedin Botanic Garden with lovely photos which I’m keen to read. I’ve done lots of posts on the plants there, including today’s actually! I live in Gore (Southland) now but lived in Dunedin all of 2017. Best wishes, Liz
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Thanks! Dunedin is incredibly gorgeous, isn’t it? I feel so lucky to live there. And I’ll check out your blog – a good resource on the plants there would be really helpful!
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If you go to my blog, you can click on the magnifying glass symbol (top-right) and then enter the word ‘botanic’. This will bring up lots of Dunedin Botanic Garden posts. Each of them should have the tag ‘botanic garden’. If you click on that, most results will be DBG with the odd one from Invercargill.
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