Jingle Bell rock!

Holiday season is here! Red and green lights everywhere :)

I think I'm mentally compensating for the fact that I missed Diwali this year by attaching more importance to Christmas and Thanksgiving here. The holiday season officially begins after American Thanksgiving (which was on the weekend of 24th and 25th November) and all the malls, lawns were lit up! Even our hospital has a huge decked up tree. Either I'm imagining it, or the general mood is really upbeat. The radio stations are playing Christmas specials: I find myself wanting to curl up with a book and mug of white chocolate! And I'm not even here for Christmas :( But then, Christmas is a time for family, and irrespective of location, I'm happy I'll be spending it with mine :)

Apart from missing Diwali, which is pretty much official Indian holiday season, there are couple of other things that have put me in a holiday mood. Last weekend, I crossed the border to spend Thanksgiving in Troy, MI. A family friend lives there, and I had a great weekend - lots of turkey, cosy recliners and two adorable bitches. I've met Sidney before - she ate all my Belgian chocolates three years ago, and was fine (dogs are NOT supposed to eat chocolate) but Hops was new for me, and very excited to meet a new person. The malls played Christmas tunes (I remember getting sick of them three years ago, because that's all they play for about two months) I had amazing Ghirardelli hot chocolate and there was pumpkin pie, date coffee cake and rum cake in the house, at the same time :D I was quite sad to leave the warmth of the house and travel back to London for pretty much the last time. But I met Rohit in Windsor twice :)

It snowed, finally!! I'm not a huge fan of the snow (I dread trudging through it to 8:30 class :D) but I woke up one morning, and it was all white and oh so pretty! It wasn't terribly cold either, about 0 or -1, so it was alright to walk around taking photos :) Also, last evening, Shruti and I attended Global Cafe. Global Cafe is this thing every other thursday for international and local students to mingle and have coffee with yum cookies. So the deal with this whole international student shindig is that I'm slightly tired of meeting new people and just discussing how exotic Indians are. Most of my close international friends know that by now :P Hence we'd never gone to Global Cafe till now. But this week's Global Cafe had us decorating gingerbread houses! Now, that was a great way to make a few new friends :) We obviously made the prettiest house, with cinnamon roll bushes and sparkly trees. The music for yesterday's Cafe was, of course, Let it snow and Rocking around the Christmas Tree! Also, I got some food from home last evening! No wonder I'm in a good mood!

Since Thanksgiving was just last weekend, I'm going to list a few things I'm thankful for, specifically for this Canadian semester-

1. My friends here- Shruti, Pooja and Kanu for making me not miss India, and Therese, Stefania and everyone else in Lambton for making this a truly international experience :)

2. Anshul Bhide, Nandan Gokhale and Gauri Joshi - for being in my life :)

3. Radio here- According to me, listening to the local radio makes you feel like part of the city (London is hardly a city) and BOB fm plays great music

4. Food

5. Starbucks Gingerbread Latte and Peppermint Mocha - This is the holiday spirit again

6. the Ottawa people :)

7. Megabus - made travelling everywhere more comfortable and affordable

8. Western Libraries

And that's all I can think of right now. Happy Holidays to everyone :)