Old traditions and new friends

It was so lovely, and almost painful, to see everyone's Thanksgiving photos. Heavy with nostaliga, too. But I am writing to report that we did have some turkey this year after all. The International Church hosted a dinner for expats on Saturday night, just in time for me to be able to eat again. It was a lovely dinner, but, as Kyle said, "not exactly Thanksgiving." We had Turkey, Wine, Garbanzo bean salad, bacon-wrapped prunes, and chocolate-orange souffle of some kind. When an Irish businessman in attendance announced that he was glad to have finally had his "first Thanksgiving dinner," we bit our tongues to keep ourselves from telling him that, in actuality, he had not. But there were some lovely new things: 1.) Elsa, a fetching little girl whose Mom is LIthuanian and father American, who played with the boys all evening, and 2.) This year's European Classical Guitar champion (a proud laurel for Lithuania--they REALLY do music and dance well in this little country) provided live music, which was enchanting. Cade became so mesmerized that he lay down in one of the beams that joined the floor posts and the ceiling beams(it was a Tudor era building design)to listen, and burst into wild applause when the music was finished. I hope the guitarist found it gratifying.