Mayo cheese Pringles

Gross

Thanksgiving

For the last three years (2011-2013) I have not been able to spend Thanksgiving with my family. As anyone who is far away from family during the holidays knows, this sucks. And if your mom cooks as well as my mom does, you'll know that this sucks even more.

But we did have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Lao-style. We DID have to work, both the day of Thanksgiving, and the day after (in Louisiana, called "Aradian day"?) but a lot of people are gone so it was more relaxed.  Our boss and his wife graciously opened their house to all of us who are far away from home, and rented big tables so we could all sit outside in the great 70o weather (this was my first Thanksgiving outside!) It all came together quite beautifully, which for a while I was worried would not happen...

For the Thanksgiving meal I volunteered to make Cranberry sauce (something I've been making ever since I was 7, so it's like my own Thanksgiving tradition) and the Sweet potato casserole (Marshmallow-style, not pecan). I didn't think it would be EASY to find all the ingredients, but I didn't realize it would be that hard. 

I expected a couple stores that had Expat ingredients to stoke-pile Thanksgiving ingredients. None did. 

Monday night I spent two hours roaming the aisles of my usual "grocery" stores ("grocery" is a relative term... like mentioned in earlier blogs, it's more of a really big dollar store than anything). No luck on sweet potatoes or cranberries, though I DID find large marshmallows. 

The next day at lunch I went to Joma (the most awesome chain "restaurant"/cafe in Vientiane) and asked if they would let me buy cranberry sauce, which they had because their seasonal sandwich was a "Turkey Dinner" one. They would not let me. One of the ladies said "Oh you can get it at (insert Lao name here!" but then she couldn't explain where it was. Another guy help but after 5 minutes of jotting down directions I realized he had gotten confused and was directing me to a local M-Point (convenience store).

Then I went to Lao Plaza- the hotel we used to live in- where they were having a Thanksgiving buffet. I just wanted to buy cranberry sauce. Denied. 

So Tuesday night I went to D-Mart, another "grocery store", looking for sweet potatoes and cranberries/ cranberry sauce. I thought I found a weird-looking sweet potato, but I ended up buying something that I now believe to be a radish. 

Then I went home and complained about it on Facebook. This turned out to be the best move I could make, because a coworker's wife was out shopping the next day and found ALL of my ingredients- cranberry sauce, REAL sweet potatoes (not the purple/ black ones they usually have here) and MINI marshmallows. Divine intervention all up on my Thanksgiving meal :) 

I made the sweet potatoes (AWESOME recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-potato-casserole-ii-2/) and "made" the cranberry sauce (took it out of the can, heated it up and added orange zest) and Thursday night we had a great Thanksgiving - everything an American could want in a Thanksgiving meal. We even went around the table and said what we were thankful for. 

And I wore my "Thanksgiving" (yoga) pants. Lots of give. For when I went back for thirds. 

Food mysteries

From lunch: what IS it ?

Answer: weird bananas in a grey coconut sauce. (It's actually pretty good)

Question: what is it?? 

Answer: I don't know; I felt that it would be weird to buy a drink called 'ManSome'

Christmas tree

I set up our mini Christmas tree 2 days before Thanksgiving ... 

But I was so excited I couldn't wait ! 

I got the tree and Christmas lights in Nong Khai (the Thai city across the Mekong from Vientiane - it has a supermarket!). I also asked a friend to pick up some homemade Lao ornaments from the WIG (Women's International Group) Bazaar this weekend. 

At first I wasn't sure how the tree worked and I was panicking that I would have a Charlie Brown tree...

But then I figured it out :)

The handmade ornaments : 

Booking agency mysteries

Nick and I used a travel agency to book our flight to Pakse next weekend (the Lao airlines website was either broken or not able to detect available flights...)

But the travel agency- different than the one we used last time- was a little off beat. The woman who booked our flights was great, but the 'travel agency' also had:

1. The family of the clerks in the middle of the 'office', eating a large lunch

2. The little girl of the woman, watching the Victorias Secret Fashion show 

3. This picture, on the counter. Why?

Awkward Thai Signs

'Fire Man'- I think they mean Fire station? It's in the mall parking garage...

'Asians Potato'- potato salad, with an Asian twist?

Going to Thailand just for a Movie and Starbucks

Laos has no fast food restaurants, Starbucks or movie theaters, and every once in a while we all want those things. So today we went to Udon Thani, which is an hour into Thailand. 

The most painful part of the process is clearing Customs. You have to do it when leaving Laos (painful), arriving in Thailand (not awful), then again on the way back when leaving Thailand (OK), and arriving back in Laos (really easy when done late at night and no one is there).

There were four of us so we tried to implement the "Divide and Conquer" mentality. It didn't always work. Here are Wes (white guy on the left) and Nick (white guy on the right) who are in the same line. And only one person needed to be in line. 

Also at the Lao / Thai Customs windows (there are three on each side- 4 times going through Customs x 3 windows = 12 windows you have to visit) people cut in line ALL THE TIME. And I get angry about it. Hulk-like angry. In the culture here it's totally socially acceptable to cut in line, but it's also incredibly non-confrontational. I struggle.

Anyway, after getting past Customs and driving an hour to Udon Thani, we finally reach our final destination : Starbucks. And the best part? They had HOLIDAY DRINKS. First time I've seen that at a Starbucks Asia-side. 

But they didn't have eggnog so my excitement was a little diminished. "Eggnog chai latte hold-the-water" is the best drink Starbucks can make :( 

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Udon Thani was because Hunger Games 2 just came out, and Laos has no movie theater. We got tickets to the English showing- awesome movie. Also, we bought from the concession stand. 

They were having a special- a massive bucket of popcorn plus two sweet Catching Fire thermos full of soda- 300Baht (or $10). I'm going to have a hard time when I go back to the States and have to pay $5 for a small Coke.

Nick attempted to buy a ping-pong table. He spent about an hour looking at ping pong tables in different sports good stores in the mall and measuring the trunk to see if it would fit. But as the ping pong table would be going into our apartment, and the table was much bigger than I expected... we did NOT get a ping pong table.

There are a dozen restaurants in the mall, and all but one are hot-pot. As it was Jesse's birthday, he chose the one Western restaurant. And I went to Sizzler for the first time! 

At the Central Plaza parking lot, it is apparently totally fine to block cars in, as long as you leave your vehicle in neutral. The truck to the right is ours. We had to call a security guard to roll back the other truck to get it out. Super annoying. 

The three guys, for all their shopping, didn't get much, but I spent a lot of money getting clothes, baked goods (brownie mix! Canned pumpkin!) and hair conditioner. 

It's the little things.