Thanksgiving Weekend

This past weekend proved to be another very busy couple of days.

Thursday, as you know, was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is, of course, a very American holiday, and not celebrated in the U.K. However, hundreds of Americans are either living abroad in London or visiting right now, and St. Paul’s Cathedral has an annual Thanksgiving service. St. Paul’s is the masterpiece of architect Sir Christopher Wren, who rebuilt many important aspects of London after the great fire in 1666.

The cathedral is huge, and its prominent feature is a massive dome over the center. Inside, half is whitewashed, but the other half is ornately painted and gilded. The service itself was very nice, with readings from the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain and the pastor of the American Church of London.

That afternoon, the SU center decided to treat us all to a lunch to soothe our homesickness. It was not exactly successful in that, as the caterer they hired brought turkey sandwiches and sweet potato wedges, and ran out of food within an hour. Apparently this was not the first Thanksgiving lunch they had thrown, and even the center staff was disappointed by this one.

Thursday night we tried to get as close to home as possible. We made turkey breasts (no way our ridiculously slow oven could have handled a whole turkey), mashed potatoes (with no electric mixer – just some very large spoons and our very large muscles), and gravy (from a packet – nothing like Plainville). After dinner, we headed to the bar at the University of London Student Union, as they had advertised that they would be showing the American football games.

Even with all these substitutes, it was a little sad not to be home for Thanksgiving. I am definitely looking forward to going to Rochester for Christmas

Friday we went on our last school-sponsored trip. This one was to Windsor Castle, which is only about 45 minutes to the west of London. Windsor has always held a special place in the hearts of the royal family. In fact, the Queen goes there most weekends, and makes it quite clear she prefers it to Buckingham Palace. In case you were wondering, the castle is also where the royal family gets their last name from. When Queen Victoria married Albert Saxe-Coburg, she took his last name, and this therefore became the last name of all her family. However, during World War I many people with German-sounding last names changed them to something more British. The royal family was no exception and changed theirs to Windsor, after their favorite castle.

There has been a castle at Windsor since around the 11^th century, when the invading Normans built it to defend their new land from the natives. It has many interesting features – Henry VIII and several other royals are buried in the chapel there. The state apartments are open to the public when there are no royal functions, so we got to see where the Queen throws her royal bashes. There was also an exhibit of Queen Mary’s dollhouse. This sounds kind of stupid, but the dollhouse was huge with working electricity and paintings by famous artists. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures of it.

After our time in the castle, we had some time to explore the surrounding town. Windsor is about a 20 minute walk across the River Thames to Eton, home of the famous all-boys private school (the princes went to school there). It’s called Eton College, but college here also means high school. There is a prep school for ages seven to 13, and then from 14 to 18, boys are taught at the college itself. We walked to the school, and then the opposite direction to the park in front of the castle. For some reason, every Friday that we travel on seems to be the coldest day of the week, so we spent our last half hour or so warming in a little coffee shop.

After paying our last rent payment (yay!) Saturday morning, we went to a football game. Now, remember I’m in Europe, so by football I really mean soccer. The school had managed to get us discount tickets for only £5, and we had at least 15 kids there. The game was Queens Park Rangers (QPR) vs. Sheffield Wednesday. These teams are not in the Premier League, which features the famous teams like Chelsea and Manchester United, but in the Championship League. One interesting thing about the league structure here is that teams can move between them. QPR used to be in the Premier League, but then had some bad seasons and got demoted. Similarly, teams who out-compete other teams in their league can be bumped up to higher levels.

The stadium held a little more than 15,000 fans, and almost every seat was full. The Sheffield supporters were all concentrated on one side of the stadium, and were VERY loud. In fact, they were louder than the home fans. They were singing or chanting or cheering non-stop through the entire game.

A football game consists of two 45-minute halves, but the clock never stops during that time (no time-outs or commercial breaks). The referee then adds (rather arbitrarily, it seems) a certain amount of “stoppage time” to the end of the game. I don’t really understand the rules of football, but it was a good time. Watching the game in person was definitely better than trying to watch it on television.

I think I’ve decided why I don’t really like soccer. It seems much too unorganized for me. I’m sure there is strategy and such, but I certainly can’t pick it out. You can switch from being on offense to defense and back again within a matter of seconds, and sometimes it is hard to tell who even has the ball. Even in basketball, if you are on offense you normally stay there for at least a few seconds. However, I will say that the players must be great athletes to be running up and down the field for 90 minutes non-stop. On the other hand, some are also big drama queens, falling down and screaming after barely getting hit. The whole game I just really wanted someone to get tackled.

Sunday Rick and I had signed up to do a charity fun run. It wasn’t a big run in London or anything – just a run organized by one of the administrators at SU. There were about 15 of us running, and we went to Hampstead Heath, which is a big park on the north side of London. We ran through the mud (there were no paved paths) and up some giant hills. Needless to say, I am quite sore today. But I beat a lot of the boys in, so also quite proud of myself.

After the run we were all treated to a proper Thanksgiving meal at the home of another person who works at SU. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, ziti, casseroles, rolls, chili, and pumpkin pie. We all stuffed ourselves and were exhausted from the combination of running and eating so much. It was a great meal.

The SU center has a film club every once in a while for students to explore British cinema. Sunday night the club met to watch British sitcoms. Some of them were very funny, while others were stereotypical British humor that none of us really got. Again we got free food in the form of popcorn and fruit. After coming home from that, I was so tired I just crashed without even eating dinner.