Turkey Day But I'm So Far Away...

October 12, thanksgiving weekend in the motherland. There is something about spending a holiday away from home that leaves you pining for some kind of familiarity. My family was never one to make a huge deal out of thanksgiving, each parent giving their own version of the holiday dinner. With my mom it meant praying before the meal and the sheer joy of a family dinner evident in her face, a smile that wouldn't come off her face for weeks. For my dad it is helping him often cutting up the vegetables for salads discussing things we have spent hours already discussing usually catching up on gossip. 

Thanksgiving is a holiday in which we give a moments thought and express what it is we are grateful for. My family has always been a fairly tight knit family never needing to voice that we are thankful for each other because it has always been something shared expressed usually in the comfort of just being with each other. The beauty of growing up with five siblings in cramped quarters, long summer vacations and cozy holidays you have no choice but to be close and thankful for one another. 

This is the first thanksgiving that I am away from family and it brings to the surface the feelings of being homesick. In the first years of college my dad always made the effort to come see me and bring me wherever he was spending the holiday weekend, once I hit university it meant spending it with my mom and step dad with one fun occasion of drinking my first terrible martini. 

It is the funny the places life seems to take you and having a holiday abroad forces you to sit and reflect on what family means and why must we be thankful for it. After giving it some thought I say that I am spending this holiday sans family but really as I sit on this train I am not without family. The natural course in life allows for the dependency and comfort of family to transfer to the dependency of a partner, the beginning of a new family. There will never be a point where I will not need my family but there seems to be a transition in my relationship with my travel partner that gives a glimpse on what the rest of our lives will look like. We are transitioning from being simply boyfriend and girlfriend to being partners, friends and most importantly family. This of course being nothing new in the grand scheme of life, it is something that was bound to happen sooner or later. I am thankful that at 23 I am so lucky to be so sure of something. 

Our travels in the past week have consisted of Praha (Prague), Wien (Vienna) ans we are currently en route to Munich. Prague offered a kind of beauty that to describe would not be enough. The street lined with a variety of shops selling everything from jewellery, marionettes and absenth. It is a city that uses any chance to boast its beauty with huge spotlights lighting up the city to give it a new look once the sun went down. You could spend hours on hills looking out onto the city, the view never getting tiresome. 

In Prague there was a ice pub which is exactly as it sounds a pub made of ice. I was contemplating asking my travel partner to go there but his response would undoubtedly go something like: "you want to go an ice pub? When we get home I'll just throw you outside with a beer and it will be the same thing." 

We ventured from Prague to Vienna where we booked a private suit. Now the hostel seem to take our desire for a private suite quite literally as we weren't even in the same building as the hostel. We were housed down the street and around the corner in a converted apartment building. 

We seem to be experiencing a little bit of burn out. The constant walking, trying to learn as much history and context as possible are leaving us mentally and physically exhausted. It doesn't help that apparently the people of Austria do nit believe in restaurants. For two little fatties not eating right on schedule often leads to a kind of hostile environment that can only be cured with food. True to fatty form we spent the majority of our time looking for food. 

The highlight of Vienna was Schobrunn Palace the palace of the last holy Roman emperor. On the grounds was immaculate gardens, massive fountains and a zoo. My travel partner who talked non stop about the zoo and the pandas was disappointed by the refusal of the pandas to turn around and look at us. Here's hoping for better furballs in Madrid. 

We are on our way to Munich and set to see Dachu and Cinderella's castle. Wishing family and friends a very turkey filled thanksgiving and a relaxing long weekend.