So, last weekend was not only Thanksgiving, but also the day of my birth that we always memorialize to remind us how old we are getting (pessimistic, I know). Thanksgiving was great fun. My friend, Peter, the guy who is from Massachusetts but thinks he’s Canadian and undoubtedly reading this, put together a fantastic event. We invited all the students in our school and had two sittings of Thanksgiving dinner. I attended the second one and joined my friends, American and non-American alike, and stuffed our faces until we were going to pop. We had everything from turkey, corn, cranberry sauce, mash potatoes, stuff, to pies and more-than-enough wine. The wine, as you can imagine, was the Belgian part of us coming out since we each brought our own bottle and, not to mention, got everyone more drunk than expected. The house was packed and we simply had a jolly ole time. I have to admit that Peter, a.k.a. Pita, did a splendid job and kept his cool throughout the day despite some others who did not.

I did not go out with everybody that night since a group of us were heading to Barcelona, Spain, the next day. At one point there was to be 15 of us going, but it ended up being me, Danielle from Ohio, Jordan from North Dakota I think, Peter the wannabe Canadian, Thiago the Brazilian, Justin the Virginian, Mari the token Japanese girl, and Mari’s friend from Holland. Me, Danielle, and Jordan had the same flight and caught up with Justin, Thiago, and Peter near our hostel and had a few drinks and dinner. I was starving since I hadn’t eaten that day, so we stopped at the first place we saw…a horrible buffet. That didn’t last long and we ended up having a few drinks and hung out at the pier.

The next day we set out to explore all of what Barcelona had to offer. Jordan, Peter, and I were the early birds and strolled around the city first. We saw an amazing cathedral that was half inside and half outside…I’ve never seen anything like that. We also stopped at a Starbucks since we were dying for a drop of their coffee. Surprisingly, Starbucks isn’t in Belgium. We returned to the hostel and met up with Danielle, Thiago, and Justin and headed to see the sights. I can’t remember all the names, but we visted a cathedral that has been in the works for decades, an vast park that was created by the famous architect who basically made the city. We also climbed the 2nd tallest “mountain” and viewed all of Barcelona…quite impressive. Later that night Jordan and I sat around and got pretty trashed while everyone else was out doing other stuff and by the time we went out to celebrate my birthday, I was pretty toasted. We hit up this really cool place on the pier and I basically got crazy…too crazy even for me. It was good times…from what I could remember.

The next day I was basically incapacitated all day and laid in my bed at the hostel the whole time. Fortunately, I met the coolest people, some Australians, that were sleeping the beds next to me. They were worn out from the night before too, so we chatted for a few hours as our time slipped away. Eventually, Jordan, Danielle and I headed for dinner on the pier and ate the most amazing seafood dinner. We soon dashed off, went a little shopping, and head to bed. We had to wake up extremely early the next day and jumped on our flight back to Brussels where I had a reception to attend. You can imagine how dead I was at the reception and how much I was not in the mood to mingle and “network”.

So, now I have a couple of weeks of paper writing and then I’m back home in Texas for my mom’s 50th bday party and the Christmas holidays. I can’t wait to go back to the warm weather and see my friends and family, I just have to get through these next couple of weeks.

I don’t know when my next posting will be, but be on the lookout for my Christmas posing and my New Years posting since I’ll be in Paris with Summer, Jordan, and Tara. Hasta luego!