Giving Thanks...with Waffles

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.
~Jon Stewart

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!

What a weird day it's been. A friend and I went and got waffles this morning at Norwich's own Waffle House. It was really tasty, they have both savory and dessert waffles. We went with dessert: I got a pecan one (sort of a substitute for Gram's pecan pie). And then we decided to go crazy and get chocolate mousse too. You can get it on a waffle or just in a bowl with Norwich whipped cream, which is what we did. It came with a warning, because it had raw egg in it...it tasted like brownie batter that had been whipped. It was delicious. And incredibly filling; I had about 2 bites left and couldn't finish it. So you will all be happy to know that I stuffed myself in a good Thanksgiving way. I'm still really full.

I walked around downtown for awhile after that. I went to one of the Oxfam shops, did some Christmas shopping, bought myself a black beret which has a little glitter on it, went by the river, and then back up by the Cathedral. I noticed there were a lot of soldiers around taking donations (if you gave money you got a balloon). When I got back to the market there were all these people lining up, so I stayed to see what was going on. There was a big sign on the Newsagents that said "Welcome home, well done". What I found out was that the Anglian Regiment had just gotten back from their tour of duty in Afghanistan and people from all over had come to see them (the people in front of me were from Cambridge). It was really packed and getting really cold, but then they started playing Rule Brittania, and the soldiers all marched down with their guns and swords and everything. And the man behind me yelled, "that's my son!" so everyone started cheering for him. The old woman next to me (why am I always next to old women at these events?) said kind of to herself, "oh my, they are barely more than boys" and I started crying and could not stop. I think it was a combination of things...I cry at most anything, this was my first Thanksgiving without my family, the fact that everyone I know who is not in England was just getting ready to eat dinner with their families, that people who are younger than me go to war and sometimes die, the ones who do come back don't get the right treatment from the government that sent them there, and that the soldiers marching by were supposed to look serious but you could tell they were so happy to be back. And that's a pretty good thing to be thankful about.