Happy Thanksgiving

On actual Thanksgiving everything here was business as usual. Lots of my family decided to all have a group skype call so that we could chat and see how everyone was doing. It was midnight my time when we started and I hung up around 1:30 am. At one point we had 5 laptops and/or phones connected to the call. It was nice getting to hear how everyone was doing, plus I got a tour of my sister's house.

On Sunday, IEC hosted its 3rd annual Thanksgiving dinner. There were close to 200 foreigners and Koreans there, which was about the same as last year. Liezle even came into town just for the dinner (and to catch up with some people). After church services, a bunch of people chipped in and moved boxes and cans down from the IEC area to the Korean kitchen area. Apparently there was some minor drama from the lady affectionally called the kitchen Nazi because she didn't want us in there. She was overruled by church elders. I helped peel and slice carrots, then stirred some other veggies.

Part of the reason I took so long to write this was that I was waiting on pictures from other people. I wanted to explain what the kitchen looked like and all the rules surrounding it. Unfortunately, those pictures still aren't posted. I guess I can wait to explain more later.

Decorations (aka left overs from Korean Thanksgiving the week before. The mass of stuff on the right is a bunch of persimmons - I will another post about those. All pictures in this post are from Jackie's facebook page - thanks Jackie!

 Moving on. As I was stirring veggies, then adding butter, salt etc. and setting up some serving stuff, people started arriving. I recognized some people, but had no idea who the vast majority were. This is one of the strange things about coming back to a town you know. I was expecting to feel the same, but I feel kind of like a stranger among friends. I still know some people, but those people aren't part of groups that hang out together. Now I feel like I need to make a whole new set of friends, but at the same time I don't want to lose the others and I don't really want to do the whole dancing/drinking/partying thing this time around. I mean I suppose I will sometimes, just not to the same extent.

Brandon and the main church pastor talking about IEC and giving the blessing

Anyway, dinner itself was really good. The only "bad" part was that my table was the last to be called so we had to watch everyone else get their food first. Luckily there was plenty so I was fine.

Mmmm...food. Costco pumpkin pie is legit by the way.

Then Liezle and I stayed to help clean up, got some leftovers, and went to meet her other friend Ryan for coffee where we talked about bad Christmas songs for two hours. Liezle stayed at my place and we stayed up chatting about life and TV for a long time.

We got up early to meet Keung He for coffee at a Twosome Place downtown. Then I went home and took a nap before school. I feel like there is more to add, but there really isn't!