Thanksgiving fun

Woah, it's almost November already.. really? I have no idea what's happened to time, all I know is it's now almost 3 weeks since Thanksgiving, and also all that work I was talking about before, well it hasn't stopped. At all.

       Anyway I said I'd write about my first ever Thanksgiving! Some people who I told that it was going to be my first Thanksgiving found that a little strange, "You don't get Thanksgiving in Scotland? Why?"  What could I say... we have nothing to be thankful for? The truth is I don't really even know what Thanksgiving celebrates, and nobody who I asked seemed to know too much either. I'm not complaining though, it meant a day off of uni and lots of food, beginning on Thursday evening when mealhall closed all of the different food stations which are normally there, and instead everyone ate from the Thanksgiving buffet.

        One of my friends from residence, Shannon, invited me to go to stay with her family in New Brunswick for the weekend and of course I said yes. Most people went home for the holiday unless they live too far away. New Brunswick is the province next to Nova Scotia. Looking on a map I thought St Stephen (Canada's chocolate town :)  ) the town where I was headed, looked pretty close. I guess I forgot I'm currently living in the world's second largest country, so it actually took 6 hours to get there. Shannon has an uncle who lives in Nova Scotia and pretty close to Wolfville so he came to pick us up on Friday afternoon. I was so excited, it felt quite like Christmas since it was cold and everyone was leaving for the weekend. On the drive we stopped for food and ate in Wendy's for the first time. A Frosty is a delicious and thick milkshake which I highly recommend. Arrived in St Stephen at around 7 o'clock and met Shannon's parents, plus her three sisters, her brother, some cousins, an aunt and an uncle. She told me before that she was related to most of the town, and she really wasn't lying. There were also some very tiny kittens, which one of the cats in the house had given birth to a few weeks before, and they were they cutest little things! I wanted to steal one of them so badly., but unfortunately pets aren't allowed in residence.                                               

Me and Shannon



Vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner



              On Saturday Shannon and some of her friends from school were meeting up to play a softball game, so I went along to watch. Softball is basically the same as Baseball, and as far I as I can tell that's not too dissimilar to rounders, although I'm sure I'm probably wrong about that. I was extremely cold watching the game, even with my coat on and two blankets plus a Tim Horton's hot chocolate. So instead of going to watch the high school football game with Shannon, I went back with one of her sisters and played with the kittens to get warm! During this time I was asked many many questions about life in Scotland, and of what I knew about Canada. It's pretty fun when people ask stuff like this, and I also enjoy when my accent is laughed at since I've always wanted to actually have a Scottish voice! (apparently the funniest words are those with a double o - book, cook, cool, look.. etc.)  In the evening we had Thanksgiving dinner, which both sets of Shannon's grandparents came over for. The main course is pretty similar to Christmas dinner, and being vegetarian I skipped the turkey, but ate a lot of other food especially PIE! There were so many types of pie for dessert, my favourite being chocolate followed by pumpkin. Yummm! Shannon had a lot of people she wanted to see, which included a trip over the border to America. It's just a drive over a bridge to reach the state of Maine, although with my no student permit and my British passport we weren't sure if I would be able to leave Canada and return. Luckily border patrols on both sides said it was ok, and all I had to do was pay $6 for entry in the states. Then we visited Shannon's friend, and also took a trip to McDonald's and Wal-Mart, where there are different types of junk food which I just had to buy (example, strawberry milkshake oreos).



USA!



         Sunday involved a trip to Shannon’s grandparent’s house to eat seafood chowder and macaroni cheese, plus more pie (it was Thanksgiving after all...) Met a lot more family, who were all so nice and made me feel so welcome as if I was a part of their family. One of Shannon’s friends then took us for a drive around St Stephen and the countryside and I appreciated the autumn colours – the trees are soo pretty! Then on Monday the six hour journey back to Acadia, home sweet home!



Fall is pretty



me near St Stephen



Kitttiieeesss!



So that pretty much sums up my Thanksgiving weekend – food and family! Although I’ve never experienced an American Thanksgiving, I think it’s a bigger deal there. I know that universities get a whole week off of classes and I think maybe the meal is had on the same day by all families, whereas different people who I spoke to all said different things about when they eat and what they do. It was definitely a nice thing to experience... maybe in Scotland we should find something to be thankful for and celebrate it too! Next thing to look forward to, HALLOWEEN!!