Thanksgiving

Since my arrival to the US, I always wanted to have an experience of the local festivities here be it Halloween or Thanksgiving. Most of the times, missing Indian festivities back home used to bring back fond memories of delicious food and the family unions. While Halloween finished off in a blink, thanksgiving was another thing all together. 

It was Wednesday afternoon when I noticed both the college staff and non teaching folks wanting to go home soon. workers at  Starbucks in our college library were already getting upset since they were the only ones working on thanksgiving eve. I wondered, why would people be so excited about a one day festival? I was wrong. 

It was thanksgiving on Thursday alright, apart from that long weekend was also the reason. Now, we Indians might have plenty of festivals throughout the year,giving us the excuse to stay back home have awesome food, pray and have a good time. But what about the folks here? I guess they also look upon the festival times to get some time off and when weekend is upon them anyone would want to get away from their hectic life. (Reminds me of my  days at Google where I had 3 days week off. Those days were fun) 

Many of my friends who had cars drove off to places to hang out or do shopping while those "exciting deals" where still there. But me being me, was all  alone in the apartment for 4 days. Sheesh. I had my fun time too. An american friend of mine happens to be a Music major in my college. He also like me,signed up for the cousins program, and since then we have been hanging out with a couple of other folks around places. He invited me to his home for dinner along with two other folks from Russia. Now isn't this exciting? hmmm..  

I was a vegetarian and was really getting on my nerves on how I would manage and get though this "american dinner" experience. Thankfully, my friend's  mom was very thoughtful and made some rice for me, which was the only thing I had apart from the delicious rice crisps and the pie. More than the food, the dinner was a perfect opportunity for great conversation between my hosts and myself and of course the bloke from Russia. They were a family of musicians and I myself had musicians in my ancestors. Loads of instrument playing, singing and playing poker and they made me to sing a couple of classical verses too lol. The pie was fabulous and it was an evening well spent(even though I had finals coming up). 

Where ever we go, the importance of festivals is the same, since the concept of vacations never existed before, people needed some time off from their regular life and here they -  are be it Thanksgiving or Diwali. 

Celebrating life...