Thanksgiving with the Fulbrights

So we were invited to go to a Thanksgiving dinner at an American style restaurant with all of the Fulbright grantees this past Tuesday. We hoped it would be a nice, almost intimate, buffet style dinner. We started out for the restaurant maybe 8 miles away with 50 minutes lead time at rush hour. We somehow managed not to bring our ever-present backpacks with extra water and snacks in them. This was a big mistake! About 1 hour into our 95 minute ride, Anna started crying from hunger. Rosa joined in after awhile. She helped the whole mood by telling Anna we were going to die from lack of food. Needless to say, we were a bit frazzled when we arrived at the dinner and found that it was in a restaurant's main room and that there were no chairs for us. We quickly bought the kids some cookies to get their blood sugar up and then spoke with our hosts who helped find us a table at the end of a long row of young grantees. We were the only ones there with little kids so we had to keep them entertained.
When the meal did arrive, there was some good pumpkin soup, turkey with gravy, some fair stuffing and cranberry sauce, but, alas, no mashed potatos. The pumpkin pie for dessert was fair as was the apple pie. All in all, it was an okay meal, but not worth the time and effort to get there through rush hour. As far as meeting the other Fulbright participants, the physical space didn't really allow for much interaction.
One thing we did find at the restaurant, was a hallway with very strange doors in it. At least five doors in a row, all with this same message. One wonders if they ran out of drywall and just made up the difference with doors!