Thanksgiving and Finals

I apologise for the extreme lateness of this blog post; I have been very busy with Thanksgiving and finals.

Thanksgiving, while a completely bizarre and seemingly unecessary holiday (why have Christmas dinner before Christmas? Doesn't that spoil Christmas? Why even have a holiday just before Christmas?), was really enjoyable. Even though the timing was a little odd, and it was jarring coming back for exams, it was about time that I saw Harry, left Bloomington and ate food in restaurants rather than increasingly disappointing food courts. Indianapolis as an actual place to visit is not as amazing as Chicago.

Chicago just looks really good. The buildings are tall (the Sears/ Willis tower is the tallest building in the western hemisphere) and it was snowy and like a film set in Chicago*. Over the holiday I also got to experience Thanksgiving dinner, which is the same as Christmas dinner. I was pleasantly surprised, having a usual hatred of Christmas food served before Christmas day and not by my mother. Luckily the restaurant was really good. After Thanksgiving I had to return to campus and do loads and loads of work. In America there is no such thing as 'reading week' or 'study leave', so its papers then exams one after another with not much time to do either. Now I understand why Americans drink so much coffee.

Tomorrow morning I am off to Canada. I'm really excited about being in a country where, even if they don't serve tea in mugs in the cafes, they will definitely serve it in mugs at my cousins's house. The clueless American phone company AT&T have given me mixed information about whether my phone will work in Canada, so I'll have to wait and see about that.

I had a really great weekend just before finals week, having dinner with the people from Indiana Student Television where I help out and attending a party with all Americans, but in the past week of finals, where nothing has been happening and each food court has gradually closed until only the worst one is left, I have been really looking forward to leaving. I've enjoyed doing nothing (I only had one final and it was this evening), but I'm ready to see family.

*Presumably the musical 'Chicago'