El dia de la acion de gracias (Thanksgiving)

To be completely honest…Thanksgiving Day was welcomed from the pub on Wednesday night by me and other Americans fearing the emotions that may come with the holiday away from home. Therefore, as may be assumed, Thanksgiving morning started off hung over. I got my act together though and made it to class, as I always do – exactly opposite of my room mate who NEVER goes. I’d decided I was going to do EVERYTHING I enjoyed to assure a good holiday, so I bought a coffee before class, ditched my second immediately when I heard the professor wouldn’t be there (normally I stick around to find out for myself, but being that it was “MY” holiday, I jammed!). Yes, this is very typical of me, but I skipped class to go for a long, long run and then hit the tanning bed. If you’re curious, I started tanning because I have NEVER been this pasty white in my life, nor this gross fatty feeling. And since my staple food is bread “pan” (in Spanish) and lentils, with some alcohol thrown in here and there, I can’t seem to get the fat problem under control. I figure if I’m gonna be fat and can help my color, I’d might as well not be fat AND pasty. So I proceed to burn myself an itch for 3 days after. Anyway, I was feeling pretty good after my run and tan sesh, so I headed home to get ready, more like brace myself, for the Thanksgiving dinner to come. I was extremely surprised with the time and effort put into our dinner…until, I tasted my turkey. It was such a tease, we had little miniature wedge salads and tomatoes in some sort of sauce, bread with oil and vinegar (which was in a bottle filled with bugs that looked like gnats) and wine. Sounds good right? I thought so too. Then they served the turkey and mashed potatoes!!! The potatoes were orange, but I didn’t let the color discourage me. I dove right in to find that they were yams, and the turkey was prepared like meat loaf. I don’t even know how else to explain it…It was meat loaf turkey! I didn’t mind – I just remember myself looking around the room and thinking how amazingly lucky I was to be celebrating Thanksgiving with a huge group of Americans – all of whom I admire for studying abroad because I know all of the ups and downs the experience beholds. While I was doing okay from the get go, I was nervously sipping on my wine for the moment I feared I would break down, and I constantly watched my cel phone waiting for a call from home. Finally it came…both of them…The phone call and the inevitable break down! Haha. I saw that phone light up and sprinted for the bathroom because I knew all too well that Franklins pass the phone around and I was going to feel slight devastation. The call started out strong with mom, then Grandma, then Jules. Jules is normally the weeper, and since she left for college for the first time, every time she cries, I cry, and sure enough she did, and so did I! Then the phone went to Ian, to whom I was only able to say, “Hey Tiny, (which is what I call him) guess what I have now? Boobs! I’m so fat, I finally have boobs!” He laughed, we said our I love you’s and then passed the phone off again. It finally made it to my dad. I guess to fully understand the moment, you’d have to understand my relationship with my dad. My dad is literally my Knight in shinning armor, he is the apple of my eye, he’s hung the moon, and can literally fix anything. My dad is very much my hero and I have so much appreciation for the things he does for me, like paying for college tuition and getting me to Spain, so there’s something especially heartbreaking about being away from him on the holidays. He was super chipper, as always, so I tried to parallel his tone even though I was crying, so I chose a light subject, like my dinner. I tried to describe how much effort my program had put into our Thanksgiving dinner and wanted to joke about the mashed potatoes being orange, but I couldn’t quite keep it together, so when I told him about the meal, it came out as more of a wail of pain than a joke. Of course he thought this was pretty funny. He knows nobody’s cooking will ever compare to his and I couldn’t have wished for it more at that moment. I concluded my phone call, wiped my eyes, gathered my friends and we all went to the “Chupiteria” which translates to shot bar – as in shots of alcohol. I know…clearly I wasn’t the only down and out American kid that night. We all had a few shots and herded to the pub where I ran into my friend Jordan who was with her family who was visiting. Well…Miss Jordan was ripped and at one point put her leg up on the bar, almost fell backward, then did it again so we could get a picture! This girl is in no way trashy though. I absolutely adore her – we say we live parallel lives because we have so many things in common. We drive the same exact car, but on opposite coasts of the US and we have plans to move to New York together for law school. That explains the photo with a complete random stranger in an “I love NY” shirt. After we closed the pub down at 3am, we headed next door for a shwarma, which is a type of Middle Eastern food that I will explain in a later blog. Basically, they’re delicious and the only thing available to eat at 3 am. So Jordan leaves the shwarma place literally 5 or 6 times with her brother and his wife but keeps coming back with her tanked sister in law to tell us how much she loved us. I got in really good with the sister in law when I stole a poster for a party the next night from the bar – it was all she could talk to me about! After the schwarm, as we call it for short, I caught a taxi home, completely ignored my computer as I didn’t really want to be taunted by everyone with their families and went to bed. I woke up the next day and felt 1 million times better just knowing it wasn’t an American holiday that I was missing! I pranced my little self into town and bought a chocolate croissant and bought the absolute COOLEST pair of shoes I’ve ever seen as my Thanksgiving treat and wrapped up the one and only holiday I’ll ever be away from home. Although I’ve wrapped up that holiday, I haven’t forgotten how thankful I am to have my family at home. I always try to thank God at the beginning of my prayers at night, but I took a lot of extra time on Thanksgiving to get down to the nitty-gritty, and want to end this blog by listing the majority that I can remember. Here it goes: OBVIOUSLY my family; I’m thankful I’m my mom’s Minnie me, and that we are such good friends, I’m thankful to have a father that is going to be impossible to match when I get married, a little brother who is more like a big brother and has to threaten boys 5 years older than him for me, my sister who has played such an important role in forming the person that I am with an amazing husband who also is also a tough example for my future husband to live up to. I thank God for the Franklin family and the unity and closeness we have for such a huge and diverse group, Grandma Martha’s help and all of the work, actually it’s more like magic, she has performed in order to give all of us the lives we have, America (sounds funny, but you leave the country for 3 months and you’ll agree), American food, health, warm sheets, heaters in the house, UCLA, my friends, my support systems (ie family again), Julie and Ian’s marriage, my doggies and sooooo much more. As much as I missed home, I’m not sure I would have realized just how THANKFUL I am for all things, big and small, had I been home, participating in the usual festivities.