I’ll tell ya what. The food may not be as good, and most of your loved ones won’t be there, but expat Thanksgiving is likely to be more interesting than the one back home. Melissa and I went to a slightly belated Thanksgiving get-together at our friends Shannon and Jaime’s apartment on Saturday afternoon/evening. It was a pretty motley crew that was invited, to include Melissa and I, Shannon and Jaime, a Canadian by the name of David, and Chrissie, who is Mexican-American along with her Iranian boyfriend Darius. Darius, though he spoke little to no English, semed like a pleasant enough man, seemed a little awkward at the party. Maybe the irony of being Iranian at the second-most American of holidays had him weirded out a little bit. I’m not trying to tie his nationality to his politics, as he must be pretty liberal to even be dating an American girl, but I can’t imagine how I’d feel as the only American at a specifically Iranian holiday party. All in all, the party was a lot of fun, just really laid back, and the food was pretty good as well. Melissa and I, and by that I mean I made green bean casserole, and there was also mashed potatoes, stovetop stuffing, carrots, candied yams, and some spit-roasted chicken. I know that we should have had turkey, but its three times the price here as at home, and no-one had the means to cook such a large bird. We have the largest oven by far, but it’s just a countertop model. Oh, and there was pumpkin and apple pies for dessert. All in all, the food was good and everyone ate themselves to misery, as it should be.
As Saturday was dominated by Thanksgiving, on Sunday we went to the electronics market to buy Melissa a new laptop. Hers was fried about two weeks ago when she spilled quite a bit of lemonade through the keyboard. Her little Macbook only lasted 6 months, and I hope her new one lasts longer. We couldn’t afford to get her a new Mac, as they’re a little more expensive, but we got her a nice Samsung model for about $650. It’s not blazing fast, though its more than capable of email, powerpoint, and facebook, which was mostly what the old one was used for. I hope this one lasts a little longer than the lasts. Two laptops per year gets expensive fast.
I guess that’s about it for now. Classes are about to start, so I’ll see ya later.
