Before I Hear About the Festivities

I just finished a full day of work. Now I remember that tomorrow is Thanksgiving for the Americans. I am about to open up my Facebook account and I know I will see a long list of posts related to turkey, the holiday and maybe even football references.

It's strange knowing that I will work a long day tomorrow. I won't be on vacation. Thanksgiving is going to wait until Saturday at my house. (There will be turkey, some sort of cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.)

I have lived abroad for over a decade and this sensation is still strange. Knowing that people are celebrating and I am not.

This is part of the package of being an expat. On the upside, I will get my birthday off: December 8th. That's something the Americans don't celebrate unless they are Catholic. And even then, they go to work like everybody else and just go to mass in the evening.

I'll get a long weekend this year here in Italy--il ponte dell'Immaculata.