Thinking of home…

So the last week has brought me the first real pangs of homesickness since I’ve been in Novosibirsk. This is right on schedule according to “those people who research these kinds of things”, says my american friend Todd. Apparently it is common for homesickness to strike round the 3 month period. There have been a couple of key factors which have caused me to long for home, family, Norman, Portland, Not Russia, etc, the greatest of which was Thanksgiving.

There’s nothing in the world that could make me more homesick than reading my mother’s email in which she summarized the Thanksgiving festivities that recently took place at home. Especially this part: “We had a smoked turkey and a roasted turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes, greens with bacon, cornbread chorizo stuffing, sourdough-artichoke-chard stuffing, arugula-beet-apple-pecan salad, herb rolls, and broccoli and cauliflower casserole, and cranberry-blueberry sauce”. I mean come on Mom! What are you trying to do to me!? I’m ready to move home now just so that I can be there for next year’s thanksgiving feast.

It’s been 5 years now since I’ve spent Thanksgiving at home, and every year around thanksgiving I miss my family… To make matters worse, this year I did thanksgiving dinner with the only other American guy I know here, but he’s a freakin vegetarian! So no turkey dinner for me! Not that I really have any idea how to go about cooking a turkey, nor do I believe that the crappy little ovens in Russia actually have the heating capacity to cook a decent sized bird. But we made some tasty pumpkin stew, had some tasty cheeses, and lots of red wine. I made a very simple apple pie, which was quite tasty. But all the same, it was no replacement for the annual Nelson family thanksgiving massacre…

Thanksgiving also reminds me of good ol’ american football. In my homesickness, I have also begun paying closer attention to the wide world of (american) sports. I was excited to see that our sooner boys gave those rednecks from texas tech a good whooping. Lets just hope that they can break out of their bowl game slump. Of course they have to beat OSU first.

Oh yeah, so a crappy thing happened to me last weekend which sort of sparked my slightly less cheery mood for this week. I went to a cafe, where I skyped away with friends and family, and when I arrived home I realized that my little passport holder, where I keep documents and cards and stuff, was not in the inside, breast pocket of my jacket where it should have been. There’s no way that someone could have pulled it out of my jacket while I was on the metro, and I definately had it when I went into the cafe. So the only thing I can imagine, is that some sly bastard, hearing me talk to the waiter noticed I was a foreigner, watched where I hung my coat, and managed to grab it out of the pocket of my coat, which was hanging on a coat rack right in front of me. I’m just lucky that I didn’t have my passport with me. I did, however have 2,500 rubles stolen (about 100 uncle sam dollars), my library card, my dorm pass, and most importantly, my ATM card. So now I have to have a new one shipped to me in Russia which could take a while and in the meantime use Western Union to get cash. It’s quite an annoying thing to have happened, and of course it pissed me off to no end. But really it’s my own damn fault for letting my guard down for even a second. Really I should just be thankful that I didn’t get mugged…

On monday it’s going to get really cold here. -12 celcius (about 10 uncle sam degrees) is the high! Brrr… but I’ll finally get to wear my new winter coat!

Okay, well I’m gonna go buy some groceries now, and then go watch some Soviet movies…

I miss you all