Happy Thanksgiving!

Sometimes writing these blogs is easy, I just start writing and then after a while I realize that I've probably written enough to bore my readers into a state of numb confusion... and voila!

Other times, it's harder... I don't know, the words just don't come to me as easily as they sometimes do. That's what happened when I was trying to write my "Happy Thanksgiving" blog on Thursday. Maybe it was hard because the holiday left me in such a daze that I wasn't sure how to describe how I was feeling about everything. Maybe it was because I'd had an exam that day and had used up all of my brainpower. Maybe it was because I'd eaten too much and my brain couldn't function because my body was focusing all of its energy on digestion. Or maybe, and this is a very definite possibility, it was because I was trying to think and write coherently at 3:00AM after a very, very long day.

Whatever the reason, I didn't manage to write a blog on Thanksgiving. Sorry about that. Let's just pretend that I was confused by the time change. Hey, it's plausible - you try switching continents!

I woke up on Thursday feeling surprisingly content, even though I couldn't escape the burden of the knowledge that I was away from my family on Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday precisely because it brings us all together. I lay in bed for a while thinking about my situation and the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how much I am thankful for.

Of course, I'm thankful for the opportunity that I've been given - to live in this beautiful country for a year, meet incredible people and have amazing experiences that I'll remember for the rest of my life. I'm thankful for my family and friends back home who will always be there for me, even if I do live on the other side of the world. I'm thankful for my cozy apartment and my roommates, for the shoes on my feet and my incredibly warm scarf. I'm thankful for the snow here and for the tasty roasted chestnuts that I can buy from the street vendors on my way to class.

It's so much more than just than being thankful for what I have, though. I'm thankful for every experience I've had, for the lessons that I've learned and from the trials I've overcome. On days like Thanksgiving I miss my brother so much that it hurts, but I think of my family and of how strong they are, and I'm incredibly thankful for how close we have become. Being here, so far away from them has made me realize just how strong our ties are - that I can feel so close to them even though I haven't seen them in months.

I'm thankful for my friends here in Bologna, and for the study center which organized the incredible Thanksgiving feast in Padova. As it turns out, Italians suck at cooking Thanksgiving food... but hey, it was hilarious trying to guess what was actually in the strange dish they called "stuffing" or which body parts of the turkey we were being served. Was it even turkey? We'll never know.
The dinner, although perhaps not as satisfying as my mom's collection of traditional recipes back home, brought all of us Americans together to celebrate what we have to be thankful for here in Italy... which, among other things, is a group of wonderful friends that we can feel at home with during the holidays. Also, it's a group of friends who makes incredible desserts which make up for the Italians' lack of Thanksgiving savvy. The potluck portion of the dinner was amazing, with dozens of desserts. Chocolate cake, apple pie, banana bread, cookies, mmmmmmmm it was delicious. Yes, I'm definitely thankful for dessert.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving back home - I would really love to hear about it so leave me a comment or write me an e-mail! Tell me what you're thankful for :)