After this week I am certain of two things: One, I am definitely five pounds heavier due to exorbitant amounts of yummy Thanksgiving food; two, I have the best friends and family in the entire world. This week my best friend and my family made the trek across the pond to bring Thanksgiving to me, and it had to be the best Thanksgiving of my life.
Last Saturday I woke up early, probably due to excitement in the knowledge that my parents were arriving that day. I was due at my sister’s to help clean her house in preparation, so I decided to walk to the overground train station instead of take the tube. Just to clarify, my sister lives in Greenwich, which is only accessible via an overground train from either Charing Cross Station or London Bridge Station, both of which are a good hour walk from where I live. It may seem silly to walk an hour just to get to a station, but I’m used to walking over an hour just for fun, and the weather was beautiful.
After walking through London, making sure to see my favorite places along the way, I boarded the overground and arrived at my sister’s just after she had finished all of the cleaning. I reassured her that I had not skipped out on the cleaning on purpose (a little white lie never hurt anyone) – she didn’t buy it. As we were arguing, my mother appeared in the doorway and all traces of anger were replaced with the squeals and excitement of reunions.
My family came to visit my older sister at Christmas two years ago when she was studying in London, so they chose to visit me at Thanksgiving to do something different. My parents are also super big on ‘quality family time’ and take Thanksgiving and its meaning very seriously. I don’t suppose they saw the point in celebrating a holiday where you’re supposed to be thankful for being together when half of your family is overseas. So, in an effort to fix this problem it was announced in June that London would be invaded by my family come late November.
My sisters and I at Thanksgiving
My older sister had spent the last few weeks ordering food from all over in an attempt to make Thanksgiving as much like it is at home as possible, in terms of food. She had to special order a turkey, but the size proved to be difficult. Her oven is about the size of a small microwave, and normally my family cooks two turkeys… you can already see where I’m going with this. Crisis averted, however, because we ordered the smallest turkey and split it in half, baking the two at different intervals of the day. Stressful, but effective, however I’m pretty sure it was the first Thanksgiving where my mom admitted to being most thankful for wine (she needed something to relieve her stress during the whole ordeal).
Also, England isn’t so huge on marshmellows, so the sweet potatoes were suffering a little until we managed to find hot pink ‘marsh candies’ in some random grocery store. Somehow, we acquired all of the food and planned a complicated strategy of how best to cook it in such a small space (my sister’s kitchen is about the size of a walk-in closet). I wish I could tell you how my mom figured out how to do it, but, alas, I have nothing to do with the cooking at the holidays. I just enjoy the food, sit there, and smile. It has worked quite well for me for the past 20 years.
As I was saying, my parents arrived and we went to dinner in Greenwich. It took about an hour for the excitement of being reunited to wear off and our first fight to take place. Okay, fight is a strong term; let’s say first tiff. It was over something silly, like whose water glass was whose. You may be rolling your eyes and thinking how absurd that sounds, how sad it is that the happiness seemed over, but to the contrary, it was just beginning. I found myself laughing, even though my family was sitting there bickering, because this is the way my family is. We don’t really listen to what the other has to say and are really just waiting for our turn to speak. If we are arguing, it means we are actually all together and being ourselves. We find solace in our dysfunction.
The next day Carly, my best friend, arrived from North Carolina! I kind of pulled a creeper moved and got to the tube station quite early and sat in the Starbucks across the road, watching every single person that exited in case it was her. I must have sat there for an hour and gone through multiple cups of coffee. Finally I spotted her and dashed across the road. I don’t even think it was an appropriate time to cross and probably could have gotten hit by a car, but that was the last thing on my mind. For the next ten minutes Carly and I hugged and cried of happiness in the middle of the tube station, subject to the awkward, uncomfortable glances of everyone. Again, that was the last thing on my mind. I couldn’t believe that my best friend was in London for an entire week and would be able to spend Thanksgiving with me! If that isn’t a legitimate reason to cry of happiness in a London tube station then I don’t know what is.
The one bummer in this fantastic week was the fact that I had to work Monday through Wednesday (they gave me Thursday off), so Carly did London on her own while my parents did all the things around the city that they didn’t get to do last time. I met them for dinner most every night and on Wednesday we went to Les Misérables. Fun fact: I am obsessed with musicals. I used to want to be on Broadway until—wait, I still want to, actually. Every time my family and I take a trip to a place with some well-known theater district, we see a play or musical. Last time we were in London we saw Mama Mia, but this time I wanted to Les Misérables because I had just gotten done studying it in theater class and can’t believe I hadn’t seen it yet! The show was absolutely mind-blowing. The lead had an incredible voice that gave me goosebumps and I continued singing the songs all week. It’s safe to say that it has taken the place of Billy Elliot as my favorite musical.
After the show we went to dinner at The Wolsley, a famous restaurant near The Ritz that is known for having celebrities dine there from time to time. We tried to take a picture of the family eating, but the waiter told us we were not allowed to take photographs in the restaurant. We assumed it was some kind of attempt to protect the restaurant’s ambiance, but soon found out we were mistaken. As we were waiting for our coats, I felt my dad suddenly grip my arm and whisper in broken gasps, ‘Patrick Stewart. Star Trek. Next Generation.’ Patrick Stewart was sitting in the table just behind ours. No big deal, a celebrity was in the same restaurant that I was in the night! Apologies if that seemed like a random part of my week in include in the post, but that was my first famous person citing, so I was excited.
Finally it was Thanksgiving! Carly and I got up early Thursday morning and made our way to Greenwich. Once there my mom got the main dishes underway, leaving us with some time to kill before it was time to rotate things out of the oven. We all decided to go to the Prime Meridian and Royal Observatory in Greenwich, something neither my family nor Carly had ever seen before. After exploring Greenwich and eating a light lunch in a pub (so English) we returned to my sister’s just in time to check on the turkey. The rest of the day passed too quickly, in my opinion. It was so wonderful to have Carly there with my family. I was in my favorite place with my favorite people celebrating my favorite holiday. When it came time to eat dinner and say what we were thankful for, I cried like a fool and said I was thankful for everyone there. Not many people get there family and friend to come to London for Thanksgiving. I felt very fortunate and lucky, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
Carly and I at the Prime Meridian
Before long it was Saturday and Carly had to return to Wake Forest. It felt weird to send her off to school without me. I felt like I should be returning, but thankfully I still have three weeks left! Having my family and Carly here was nice and gave me a pleasant taste of home, but I’m not ready to go home just yet. I still have so much to see and do!
That night my family and I went to see The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in London. It’s been running for as long as the Queen has been on the throne (60 years) and on the 50th year, the Queen actually came to a performance!
This week is my last week at my internship and then I have to weeks to study for my class exam and explore the parts of London and Europe that I have yet to see. I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of turkey, family, and thanks! Have a great week!
My younger sister and I