Thanksgiving week

I'm sitting in the kitchen of my flat eating cereal and trying to entertain myself until Allie and Kara both wake up. After spending a good amount of time on facebook, checking my email, and even looking up a few videos on youtube, I remembered I haven't blogged in a while. My Copenhagen post is still under construction. My apologies for the wait. As all of you know, this week was Thanksgiving, a day I'd been dreading since before I even came abroad. The idea of my whole family being together without me on the fourth Thursday of November was and still is a depressing thought for me. However, I can definitely say I made the most of it!I did have some family here as my cousin Allie flew in Tuesday to come see me!Kara and I had gotten invited to Thanksgiving at two of our local friends' flat by London Bridge. Their names are Neel and Greg. Neel actually studied abroad at Samford in Birmingham, Alabama for a year. While abroad he celebrated Thanksgiving and liked our holiday so much that he decided to put on a Thanksgiving feast at his flat this year. Knowing Kara and I didn't really have a place to go, Neel and Greg were both nice enough to invite us. Also, two friends from our CIEE group(Americans) were also having a get together at their place. Both places required that we bring something. I was asked to bring a pie to Steve and Andrew's, guys from our CIEE group. So I decided just to double the recipe and make one for Neel and Greg's as well. I chose Granny's famous pecan pie.  Because Kara and I started the day of Thanksgiving to start baking, the grocery store had actually ran out of pecans...so we ended up making a mixed nut pie instead. So the day of Thanksgiving, we slept in and lounged around for a good portion of the day(typical pastimes for all my past Thanksgivings). Then Kara came over while Allie caught up even more on sleep. She's still jetlagged. Kara and I jumped on the tube to Angel, the next stop after my station. It has two big grocery stores that my area is lacking. We got our ingredients and ran back to my flat to start baking while we listened to Christmas dubstep music and drank Sangria. We had initially planned to start much earlier. Regardless, all turned out well. We were able to bake three pies and get dressed in time to make dinner at Neel's and Greg's. When we get there, we realized Allie, Kara, and I were the only ones who had ever celebrated Thanksgiving besides Neel. Everyone else was British and were very curious as to what the holiday actually entails. Considering the guests who had made the food had never eaten Thanksgiving, I was blown away at how good it actually was. Neel made the turkey while his guests brought stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, pumpkin soup, and other items I can't even remember. We all went around and said what we were thankful for and Allie even offered to say the prayer. After we finished our main courses, we rushed to Andrew's and Steve's to celebrate even more. We got on the Northern line and got a direct shot to Euston which was nice. The food at their place was also equally impressive. Everything was successful minus the pie crust, cranberry sauce, and brie cheese Kara and I brought. We tried to put it all together and bake it but Claire insisted on taking it out of the oven and just eating it raw...that girl: )All in all, it was a great Thanksgiving. Next big holiday is Christmas and it's already so close. I looked at my calendar this morning, and I only have three weeks left. I can't believe it's gone by so fast. I know I'll be excited to come home to see my family and friends. Although I love London, there's no place I'd rather be than in my blue house with our Christmas tree in the front living room and my feet constantly freezing on the hardwood floors. After the excitement of Christmas and seeing all my friends is over, I'll be able to look forward to New Year's. Then after New Year's I'll be so focused on going back to Mizzou and seeing all my amazing friends, Grandma and Papa, Aunt Jackie, Uncle Bruce, Marie, Leah, and Matthew. Oh I can't forget moving in with my best friend Sarah who has to be one of the sweetest, down-to-earth girls I've ever known. Then it'll happen, classes will start and I will start to feeling utterly depressed I'm not in London. And I don't even want to start talking about being separated from Kara and Claire. I love it so much here but there is so much I love back home in the States as well. I want to have them both but I can't, and today it's really on my mind. I need some cheering up to do. I think I'm going to go wake Kara and Allie up so we can go to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Nothing can cheer me up more than Christmas. My Copenhagen blog will be up soon. Love you guys. I'll be seeing you soon!