Much to our family’s dismay, we haven’t spent one Thanksgiving together with our Bay Area family since we met in December 2013. This year was no different, as we are still residing in Sevilla. We found a hosted Thanksgiving dinner for expats through Internations.org and quickly secured spots before it sold out. Our host, Babette Perez (from Miami, Florida and newly engaged to a Sevillano), put together a fabulous evening. We would like to thank her for sharing these amazing photos in our post and Jose Luis Bustamante (Busta) and his team at Zarabanda’s for a memorable meal.
Extra credit if you can name how Salemily have spent our first 5 Thanksgivings together. Extra extra credit if you can do it in order AND match location with year. The answer will be at the bottom.
Our group of about 30 people had the entire restaurant to ourselves. Zarabanda’s cooked and hosted our Thanksgiving dinner. We are sorry to hurt any of our family or friend’s feelings from our past Thanksgiving dinners, but this meal was THE BEST Thanksgiving dinner we have ever tasted. OK – remember, we are in Spain. Most Spaniards don’t know anything about Thanksgiving. In fact, E had to explain to her class that same day what Thanksgiving was and how it is typically celebrated. One of her classmates was confused. She had thought it was a religious holiday and couldn’t believe people got together and only talked about what they were thankful about.
The staff at Zarabanda’s had never cooked this type of meal before. Needless to say, we can’t wait to go back to their restaurant and try their daily menu!!!
The table was decorated beautifully with place cards for all of us. Nothing was missing from this meal and everything was made from scratch. We had cornbread to start, then a delicious pumpkin soup. Then, we had family style turkey, ham, stuffing, corn casserole, autumn salad, mashed potatoes, berry chutney, sweet potato with marshmallow and Brussel sprouts. See our menu on a table card up at the top of this post.
Included with the meal was unlimited wine and beer. They served a high-quality cabernet blend and a seasonal pumpkin beer. This quickly got the conversation flowing throughout the room. We were seated near a woman from New York visiting her cousin (who owned the restaurant), another retired woman from New Jersey who is living in Sevilla taking Spanish lessons. We had a father and daughter across from us – the daughter is going to college in Barcelona and the two of them are taking a mini trip around Spain. There were a few military men stationed in town. Also sitting across from us was a woman from northern Spain who now lives in Sevilla; she decided to sign up and come experience her first Thanksgiving. We loved seeing a few locals join and experience the joy of this glutinous and uniquely American holiday.
A woman sitting next to us, who was born in Ecuador, and now has dual citizenship in The United States and The United Kingdom described her feelings about Thanksgiving. She said when she immigrated to the States many years ago, she adopted Thanksgiving right away as her holiday. She said it touched her to have a holiday that had nothing to do with religion and all to do with surrounding yourself with people you love and care about and sharing a nice meal. Although we didn’t know anyone beforehand, it felt the same way to us for the evening.
To top off the evening, we were served several decadent desserts. While we enjoyed every bite of Nutella cake, carrot cake, sweet potato pie, Bailey’s chocolate cake and a chocolate brownie drizzled with more chocolate, Babette began to read out loud each of messages of thanks to parents, family, friends and spouses. The short stories and thoughts were very touching.
We are very thankful for having the opportunity to experience the world beyond San Francisco during the first 8 months of our 18 month adventure. The places have been great, the sites have been awe inspiring and unforgettable, but it’s the been the people that we’ve along the way that have made the trip. Whether it’s been for just a few minutes, a day or for months at a time, the people have made this trip extra special. We are thankful for each of these selfless and giving people and for our family and friends supporting us back at home. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
2014 = Emily in Antarctica, Salil in the Bay Area
2015 = Sri Lanka
2016 = Madrid, Spain
2017 = Salima, Malawi
2018 = Sevilla, Spain
For more on Babette, see her Instagram page @babetttephotography
For more on Zarabanda, see their Instagram page @zarabandasvq
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