Thanksgiving & Host

Happy last day of November!!

While you at home were all enjoying your breaks off from school and work, gathering with family for a large feast, us here in London had a little Thanksgiving celebration of our own. After Contemporary Britain class, we gathered in a festively decorated Vandon House kitchen for a meal that was prepared by us students. The menu was that of the traditional Thanksgiving meal we all know and love: turkey, 3 kinds of potatoes, green bean casserole, cream corn, salads, and of course, pumpkin pie and other lovely desserts. There was quite a lot of food, and like at home, there were leftovers for the next day. After stuffing ourselves with food and wine, most of us collapsed into slumber, but some stayed around and played card games. While it looked much like Thanksgiving would at home, it still wasn't the same. I became a bit homesick this weekend in light of the holiday. But, there are only 2 weeks left now, and still much to soak up in London!

On Friday morning, I was up with the sun and left on a 4 and a half hour bus ride up north to Leeds for my Host UK weekend stay. I was greeted with rain and Eric and Marie (pronounced Mary) Songhurst, a retired couple living in Leeds, the third largest city in the UK. I was joined for the weekend by another American student who was studying in Leeds. I knew from the drive from the bus stop to their house that it would be a long weekend. The other student was extremely quiet; I was talkative and outgoing compared to Christina. But our amount of talking did not make any difference as Eric talked nonstop the entire weekend. He would go on and on telling stories with little point or interest from me. So, I was stuck nodding and "mmhmm"-ing all weekend, pretending to listen. I realize how bitter this sounds, but it's the truth. I was really hoping for a really cool experience staying with a British family for a weekend but was quite disappointed, as a few others in our program have also been. Some students have had awesome Host stays while others have been similar to mine.

Anyway, Friday afternoon we went to a place called Tropical World were we walked around an indoor rain-forest essentially. It was kinda cool, took some pictures of animals you would see in a zoo. That night we had a casserole with fish and mince pies for dessert (not my favorite), and then they showed us pictures of their son's wedding. They also told us about all the previous students they have had stay with them over the years and how they have kept in contact with most of them and even visited some of them in their many travels to the States. Eric talked about how he didn't realize how big of an affect they had on the students they had stay for a weekend over holidays. During this entire time, I kept wondering, well then this couple must be pretty great to have students invite them to come stay at their homes years later. I thought then that my weekend had to get better. But it never really did.

Saturday, we began a car ride out to the countryside, but I ended up feeling sick halfway there, and we had to go back to their house so I could rest. It was quite miserable (I won't go into details here). I took a nap and was feeling better by dinner time that night. Eric and Marie were making a Thanksgiving meal for us, their son and daughter-in-law, and two other older couples that were also friends of the family. The visitors were all quite chatty, but mostly talked to each other about things going on in their lives, and little to me or Christina, something Eric actually later mentioned might have been a mistake (they usually just invite their son and daughter-in-law). The meal was fairly similar to what we have for Thanksgiving, but with a British flavor; about a third of the dishes were more common to Britain, like gooey parsnip and Christmas pudding.

Sunday morning, Eric took Christina and I to York for a 2 hour walking tour. It was quite windy out which made it quite cold at first. We walked at a brisk pace, stopping to hear Eric talk about a building or street or something he did as a teenager. We did see some cool churches, even the one Guy Fawkes was baptized in. It was a charming town, kind of like Pella is, only bigger. There was a lot of places for shopping around and I had wished we could have spent some time exploring the shops on the streets we breezed through. Oh well. Afterwards we drove back to Leeds, had lunch, and I packed up to head back to London. The bus ride took an extra hour or so due to an accident, so I was quite hungry and restless by the time I finally arrived to Victoria station later that evening.

Don't worry, I am better now that I am back in London! I am happy to be staying in the city for the remainder of my time, and have lots planned! This Friday, our program will be going on a day trip to Canterbury and Leeds Castle (not in Leeds). Then for the rest of the weekend I plan on going to some museums and other parts of the city I haven't yet ventured to. I will have to do a bit of homework though as well, since we have a load of assignments due on Monday. In other news, I have submitted my first application to graduate school today to a PhD program at the University of Minnesota in Educational Psychology! Quite exciting! I will be busy working on more when I get home for break.

16 days!!