Thanksgiving

And so on to Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays. Not one I can really claim to have a deep and meaningful understanding of, it has to be said, but still, gluttony is a cause I'm always prepared to throw my weight behind. I went for a couple of beers with my good friend Jonathan on Wednesday evening, and found the bars near Columbia almost completely empty - I guess New York, and particularly the Columbia area, really is a place where everyone is from somewhere else.

Jonathan's parents live in New Jersey, so it wasn't particularly difficult for him to get home for Thanksgiving. Rather harder for me, though, given that my parents are on the other side of the Atlantic and wouldn't be celebrating Thanksgiving even if I did turn up.

So it turned out that a group of seven of us celebrated Thanksgiving, after a fashion, at Reto's apartment over on Morningside Drive. Reto is a 3rd year Japanese History PhD with whom we play poker regularly, and he has a wonderful apartment overlooking Morningside Park. A fine venue for a celebration. It wasn't traditional Thanksgiving fare by any means - no turkey, yams, mashed potato or pumpkin pie to be seen. Instead we had seafood and couscous salad (prepared by yours truly), pork chops with pesto, and way too much icecream and fruit salad. Accompanied by six bottles of wine between the seven of us. Enough for a relaxed, happy and, dare I say it, festive occasion. It was great...chances to just kick back are few and far between at the moment.

It had started to snow shortly before I left, and I walked home as the flakes turned the sidewalk into powder ahead of me. A White Thanksgiving - a truly American moment.