*In honor of a certain princess who passed away recently, I am going to call this post "The Holiday Special." Let's hope it lives up to that name (ahem).
It's been a few weeks since you last heard from me and holidays are the main reason for that. I already told you about Halloween, but that debauchery was followed closely by Thanksgiving, which was in turn followed by another crazy holiday that somehow manages to draw a straight line from the birth of a beloved religious figure to this:
Might as well turn it up to 11.
Anyhow, between those two important holidays I went on a short trip to New York and Pennsylvania, because why not. Let's get to it:
Soon after recovering from all the Halloween shenanigans I had to make a decision: what to do for Thanksgiving? I'd heard from multiple, independent sources (I take a strictly journalistic approach to such matters), that this holiday was kind of a big thing here in the States. Also, I was advised to do my best and con my way into a Thanksgiving family dinner. I managed to do just that: Mike (good friend/former roommate/lovely Lisa's lovely husband/best photographer ever) had invited me to celebrate Thanksgiving with him and his family in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. I found out, however, that airlines are greedy bastards had caught a whiff of that Thanksgiving thing too and charged about three times as much as they usually do for a New Orleans-New York ticket. I decided to postpone that trip and look for an alternative way to spend this year's fourth Thursday in November. And thus, this happened:
Missy, Theresa, Sarah and yours truly looking dapper.
Apparently, people who don't have a lot of family in this city at one point decided to get together and do the next best thing: put on fancy hats, pack a few flasks of cheap liquor, gather at the race tracks and bet on horses with funny names. It was dandy. Mighty Manfred won back the money I'd sunk into Don Quixote (could've seen that one coming), with every desperate gulp my well-tempered whiskey tasted more pristine and I saw at least half a dozen people wearing their potted plants as hats. We rounded off the day by eating our body weight in turkey and I passed out at about 9.30pm. Not sure this was quite the authentic Thanksgiving experience, but I'll definitely take it. What a fantastic holiday.
About a week later I embarked on my postponed trip to see Mike. Brilliant planner that I am, I decided to add a short detour to my trip to PA and visit my favorite aunt in New Paltz, NY. Incompetent executioner of plans that I am, I managed to revisit an old tradition of mine and oversleep on the day of my departure. I wanted to get up at 5am, get a shower, have breakfast and greet Jacob, the Innsbruck student's designated airport driver** with a nice cup of coffee. Well, I woke up around 6.15am, after about thirty minutes of him banging at my door and an hour away from my departure time. "Nothing a whole bunch of deodorant and a Snickers bar or two can't fix," I thought and offered J-Cab™ some extra cash and my first born child by way of an apology. Thankfully, he declined (which is good, as I'm not entirely positive I haven't promised my first born to somebody else before). Some people are just too good for this world.
Anyway, about twelve hours and a brief pit stop in NYC later ...
Hello, my love. I've missed you.
... I arrived at my aunt's doorstep.
Gabriela and me had already planned this trip back in August when she took Maria and me on a hiking trip up to the Mohonk reserve:
Ignore the bear, that's a different story.
Once a year, in early December, the luxury hotel you see in the picture above hosts a "Community Week," and invites locals to spend the day there for free and enjoy some quality time with a good book in front of a fire place, to go for a spin on the ice skating rink, play some pool and gorge themselves on free cookies. Which is ...
... exactly ...
... what ...
... we ...
... did.
Then it was finally time to visit Mike and his family in Dillsburg. I was greeted with open arms and plenty of holiday decoration. The Kimmels definitely know how to properly Christmas:
When has less ever been more?
Which is good, because it feels like New Orleans really only has a rough idea about what this "Christmas" thing actually is that all the kids keep on making such a fuss about. But I get it - it can be difficult to get into a proper mood for Christmas when it's 25 degrees outside (that's Celsius), so it only makes sense to abandon all pretense and go full-on Grinch on this holiest of seasons.
Happy Holidays, everybody!
** I'm still pushing for him to adopt the moniker J-Cab. Folks, you heard it here first.
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