End of November: Moving & Giving Thanks

Moving Day
November 23rd I woke up in quite a state. It was moving day from CoHo (corporate housing) to 29 Thornecliffe and of course it was snowing outside. It never snows in London. Now in comparison to the snow falls I'm accustomed to in Chicago this was absolutely pathetic, but of course the town was operating as if a blizzard had unexpectedly hit. What's worse is I was a bit hung over. Yes, in true Lindsay fashion I decided to join a Monopoly bar crawl with my new friends...and lose my mobile (cell phone) along the way. oops.

Incase you're wondering, I was the thimble.

Anyway, my taxi came at 9:30A and I arrived at Jenny's shortly thereafter. I wheeled my suitcases into my new room and immediately started crying. I hate to say this, but these were no tears of joy. As I unpacked my suit cases I was balling my eyes out because all the things I had in my suit cases almost filled all the storage in my room -- and I still had 14 boxes arriving from the States in 2 weeks (or 1 fortnight). All the while poor Jenny was sitting in the living room watching TV and I have the door shut to the room crying my eyes out. What a horrid, American cry-baby roommate. At this point I decided to call my bar crawl friends on Jenny's landline as I knew they lived in Clapham too. Luckily they were awake and told me to come over. I explained the situation and after each of them showed me their London bedrooms I realized I wasn't going to find something larger any time soon. From that moment on I knew all I could do is pull a Tim Gunn and 'make it work'.

Thanks
"What?! Brits don't celebrate Thanksgiving?!?!" exclaimed 90% of my American friends and family.

Nope, the Brits don't celebrate the pilgrim's first harvest with the Indians, so Americans in London have to make due. A lot of people felt really sorry for me and, to be honest, I almost felt sorry for myself...until I got invited to TWO different Thanksgivings on TWO different days. HOLLL-AR.

I'm a little too tired to get into the details of either dinner...but in sum:

Dinner #1
-Prepared by culinary student visiting from NYC
-Mix of Brits, Australians, Spaniards -- all celebrating their first Thanksgiving feast
-I made green bean casserole and everyone told me it was good but it was far to runny. I'm fairly certain I only got compliments because people thought I would cry I didn't - my friends quickly learned what a cry baby I can be.
-Missing pumpkin pie as no filling could be located. boo.

Dinner #2
-100% American
-All traditional cooking
-Natalie found pumpkin pie filling so Thanksgiving was saved.

YUM.

While both dinners were amazing, Thanksgiving with friends and family from home is something that cannot be replicated or replaced. I missed taking the Wednesday Metra Milwaukee-West line home along with the rest of Chicago, going to The Dutch and seeing half my high school class, laughing about the night with my brother in the morning, watching the parade and dog show with my mom and dad (obviously we root on the black standard poodle), anxiously awaiting my extended family to arrive at my parent's, martini's with my dad, football, side dishes, a tipsy round of 'Ting-A-Ling BINGO'! and shopping the next day with my mom and Annie.

That's all for November...you're lucky I have such a good memory. Below are some things to look forward to with in my December post:

-Kevin's visit
-Work Christmas party
-Lindsay Saves Christmas