Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I can't believe it already has arrived! You might be wondering: why no post on Halloween? Indeed, there was a university wide trick-or-treating session that culminated in a night out drinking. However, I did not go since I was not all that keen on going out getting candy or drinking (boring, yes, but MIT has taught me that going out is not the only you can do on a Saturday night). In addition, MIT doesn't give you a holiday for Halloween, but it certainly does for Thanksgiving!

Of course, Cambridge does not have a Thanksgiving vacation since it is a US-based holiday. Nevertheless, it does attempt to cater to American students, who to my surprise make up a pretty sizable portion of the student body. I had up to that point met zero Americans outside of MIT. I suspect the American student body is mostly graduate students though.

Anyways, back to this catering, Cambridge hosted a Thanksgiving luncheon in which I was more than happy to participate. It was held at a building called the University Centre, which for all intensive purposes is like Stata minus the classrooms (yes, it does have overpriced food just like Stata!). True to the way most US retailers welcome in the Thanksgiving holdiay, I was welcomed by those wonderful Thanksgiving decorations shown above! The dining area was quite large, and as I knew no one, it was a little awkward trying to find a place to sit. Eventually, I settled at a relatively empty table near the entrance just in case I might catch some of my fellow MIT CME's, some of whom I suspected would also be attending.

Ultimately, I didn't really need them there though, as I soon managed to strike up a conversation with the one other person at the table, and I later found myself in a solid, five-person conversation, one of whom was actually from Cornell and was just visiting her friend for the holidays! It was also a good mixture of graduates and undergratudes, which assured me that at least there were some Americans here in Cambridge that were also undergraduate students besides the 20 or so MIT students.

The food that accompanied the good conversation was decent overall. While the appetizer/starter was somewhat disappointing, a tiny mushroom apéritif, the meal recovered with the main course, a collection of delicious meats ranging from turkey to beef to sauage wrapped in bacon (yum!) along with vegetables and cranberry sauce (though no mashed potatoes and gravy!) and the dessert, two slices of pie, one apple and one pumpkin. The pumpkin pie was somewhat unusually prepared though, as it lacked a soft pie-filling texture in the middle that was present however in the apple pie. Alright, so not my best Thanksgiving meal ever, but pretty solid as a whole for a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday. Also, it was lunch after all, and if I had too much food, I might have dozed off at the lecture I had soon after.

For those from MIT who are reading this, I know you just kicked off a well-deserved four day weekend! Enjoy it! And to all you readers again, have a happy Thanksgiving!