First off, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Portugal.
So, the guy renting an apartment to me didn’t know it was a special day for me when he told me to get my stuff and find another place to live. I still had a couple months left in Portugal and this was a problem.
Wait, I am getting ahead of myself here. Let’s backtrack 24 hours.
The previous night, I’d been out with some Belgian friends at a place called the Shots Bar (it was a bar, they served shots) when we fell in with some Australians who wanted to put some down.
Next thing I know our whole crew is making breakfast at my flat at sunrise. The kitchen looked like an utter disaster zone afterwards. Everyone left and I fell asleep in my room.
Only to hear loud knocking a few hours later from my angry landlord who wanted to know what happened in the kitchen. I told him I didn’t know and hoped he would go away. My answer was insufficient to him.
He told how disappointed he was and that it was time to find somewhere else to make breakfast for your new drunk friends.
I told him whatever and I would accept the prorated remainder of rent in cash. He then replied I could stay until the end of the month, provided I clean up the kitchen.
I did no such thing and went to have the most memorable and interesting Thanksgiving dinner of my life with 15 great European friends who had never celebrated it before.
I told them how it was a holiday about family. I told them they were part of my family and while I wouldn’t remember football scores or who yelled at who over politics, it would be one Thanksgiving dinner I would always remember in the fondest of ways.
The next morning, the landlord called my bluff and sent me packing…
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