It's cold outside

[nephthys224]

Urgh, it just occurred to me that today is Thanksgiving. Or at least I think it is. And instead of being at home in Plano, fighting over that last piece of pecan pie, I am sitting here in Holland reading the world's most boring articles about the evolution of social complexity in the Caribbean. I'm supposed to write 1500 words about all this in the

Comments

[nephthys224]

I will definitely be spending a lot of time on the phone with my mom! :) She's already explained the process of roasting the turkey, but now I need to get her to guide me though making the gravy, the dressing, the green beans, etc. I'm kicking myself for not paying closer attention when I was still living in the US, but I've always been much more interested in baking than in actual cooking (I always made the pies, even when I lived at home), so my sister and I always just left the rest to my mom. Which leaves me undergoing a sort of trial by fire this weekend... Eek! :)

Hopefully the pecan pie will come out all right, as it is the best part about the whole holiday! I'm a bit concerned about my oven, which is a really crummy little combi-magnetron and which cooks very unevenly, but I'll just keep rotating the pie and hope for the best. My family brought me Karo syrup, vanilla extract, cornbread mix, Crisco, and other Thanksgiving necessities when they came to visit in October, so I should be set in terms of ingredients. I have no idea where I'd have gotten those things otherwise-- I've checked EVERYWHERE for corn syrup!

And yep, the daily commute from Schagen to Leiden is atrocious. I absolutely despise spending so much of my life sitting in uncomfortable seats under fluourescent lighting listening to Metallica via the leaky headphones of my inconsiderate neighbor. But renting a room for myself in Leiden would be too expensive, not to mention the fact that I'd still be travelling up and down between there and Schagen if I wanted to see my boyfriend. So daily commuting it is... though I am definitely going to try to work things out next semester so that I don't have to be there 5 days per week! I'm really enjoying my study otherwise, though I am of course panicking about finding a job afterwards. It wouldn't be all that difficult back home in the US, but I'm here, and I don't want to go back! :)

Anyway, enough babbling about myself-- I wish you a lovely Thanksgiving feast, with or without pecan pie. :)