Thanksgiving Day in London

As much as I love my family and want to be with them during the holidays, I'm becoming a big fan of spending Thanksgiving in random cities with friends. A few years ago, I was in Washington, DC with Liz and Brian, and this year, also with Liz/Brian and some of their friends (1 American, 1 Brit) , we celebrated Thanksgiving more or less American style, just sans turkey because of the mostly vegetarian group. We had everything else though...sweet potato casserole, spinach and cheese casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green salad, artichoke dip, and stuffed portabello mushrooms. Oh yeah, and pumpkin pie with homemade crust!

During the day, Alex and Becca shooed us out of the house to sight see while they worked on the dishes. We went to the Tate Modern and St. Paul's Cathedral. The Tate was really cool, a well planned out space with many areas to sit it and just have a few of the Thames. Also, Rodin's "The Kiss" was on display, as was a painting by Gerard Richter of a Paris landscape that really impressed me.

When we went to St. Paul's in the morning, we decided not to go in because there was a Thanksgiving service in progress (?). Yes, apparently there is enough of an American presence in London that St. Paul's even joined in. So when we went back later, we looked around a bit, and planned to climb to the top, but they had just closed it down because of inclement weather. Bugger. We could only walk up to the whispering gallery. The cathedral was different than most of the ones I'm used to seeing in France--less stained glass, more gold paintings, and overall very impressive.

We headed back to Becca and Alex's in Hackney late in the afernoon, and by the time we were back, they were ready for us to start eating! Several courses and bottles of wine later, we were sufficiently full and quite pleased with the overall success of the meal. We took turns going around the table saying what we are thankful for, and mine was, not surprisingly, that I am a. thankful for having been born and raised in a first world Western country, but b. that I am also thankful for having had this opportunity to live in India and see how so much of the rest of the world lives.