Happy Thanksgiving!

This morning I woke up at 9:00 am and talked to Jill for a bit before she departed to get some work done. I hung out and sang, played games on the computer, got ready, and then ventured out to get my second dress. I walked down the street to the tailor at 10:15, tried it on, had her loosen the chest part, and then paid and left. I got a buoi (huge, sweet grapefruit) on the walk back to the dorm and was back to my room by 11:00. I threw out some stuff and tried to slim the amount of stuff I’ll be packing to go home. Maybe that will make tomorrow’s packing easier.

Jackie came and got me to go to the Old Quarter and I caught the 31 bus with her and Meggie at about 12:30. We took the bus to the lake, got Jill from the Highland’s Coffee in the mall, and walked to this great restaurant called Pepperoni. It smelled exactly like Pop’s Pizza in Cheshire and we were able to eat at a pasta and salad buffet for less than $2. It was nothing less than glorious. Then we moved on and found this really cool t-shirt shop. We’ll pick up some cool t-shirts tomorrow, since I designed one and we have to pick it up then. Then I went with Jill to pick up her dress (we were told to come back in 45 minutes) and Meggie and Jackie went to pick up their robes. We met afterwards and found the Kangaroo Café, where we got these really funny t-shirts and had really big, tasty iced coffees with condensed milk.

We split up at 3:00 pm and Jill and I went back to get her dress. We then did a bit more shopping and caught a xe om back to the dorm at about 4:00. There was an urgent email about packing up our bags for tomorrow morning’s weighing in DiDi’s room. I was going to complain about the short notice but it’s just so that we don’t have to pay so much money in overage charges. I did a lot of packing and then took a short shower before donning the dress I picked up this morning.

I left with a bunch of people on the 31 bud and took it to the lake. We walked about one block before reaching the Italian restaurant called Al Fresco’s. Our professor made reservations for a great Thanksgiving dinner and we had a lot of fun. We got to draw on the tablecloth and I asked everyone to hold hands, go around the table, and say something they’re thankful for. The professor asked me to say a “multi-religion” prayer and it meant so much to me. I kept it simple and didn’t specifically address any deity so as not to leave anyone out or make anybody angry. Afterwards I was trying to explain to DiDi and Monica how much that meant to me to be able to pray with the group. I said, “I was so surprised (but happy) that the professor asked me to say a prayer! I mean, everyone doesn’t believe in the same things” and Monica said “Well we all believe in you.” It was incredibly nice of her to say and it made for a great Thanksgiving.

After our awesome dinner of calamari, nachos, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and broccoli (I even had a few trees in honor of daddy). It was really good and dessert was vanilla ice cream and apple pie. Thank God!

Our group left the restaurant at about 8:30 pm and I went with Brittany, Monica, Jackie, Jill, Sarah, and DiDi to Le Pub. We sat in the back and played Jenga and I drank Coke. Then Eric showed up and we all played Rummy until 11:00 pm, when I took a xe om back with Jackie (and then Jill on the other vehicle). I got back to the room, threw a few more t-shirts in my big orange bag, and then went downstairs with Jill to make phone calls. She’s been really nice to me and let me use her computer with her Skype minutes to call both of my families! That made for an awesome Thanksgiving as well. Time to go try to reach mom again…