haggard hunchbacks & thanksgiving.

Well, it's Thanksgiving. My second Thanksgiving in another country. My second Thanksgiving away from my family. My second Thanksgiving not really celebrated. And let me tell you, it is hard. I really miss it. I missed it last year, and I miss it even more this year. Spending time with my family and eating literally all day. Because in case you didn't know my stomach is pretty much a bottomless pit. Even if I say I'm full I can always still eat. It's a problem. 

Anyway. 

I miss it all. The laughs. The fights. The food. The games. The people. It's all so great. Although I miss it, it has definitely helped me become even more thankful for my family and the warm, safe environment that encapsulates my home. And despite the fact that I miss it all so much, I am thankful to be here in Lithuania. I'm thankful for the little smiles that brighten my day. For the snide looks and remarks that are sent my way when the kids don't like something I make them do. For the random insane 30 second tickle attacks from all the elementary students. All of it. 

Also, a shout out to my 9th great grandpa, William Bradford, for making this holiday possible. Without him there might not be a Thanksgiving. 

Enough about Thanksgiving. It might make me cry. 

The only good thing about it is that while everyone is consuming their weight in food today, I will be eating practically nothing. I'm saving myself for Christmas.

Flashback to last week.

The week started off great! All 5 of us were invited over to one of our students houses (yes, an actual house) after we were done teaching to have dinner. Oh my goodness it was fabulous. I ate so much food! We had appetizers that consisted of different types of meat on a platter, liver spread on bread, a slice of salmon, avocado, and a caper on bread, and just plain bread. I didn't touch the liver spread. Been there, done that, never happening again. The fish one was good and so was the meat! Then came our main course of dumplings with either an onion sauce or a mushroom cream sauce. The dumplings were filled with meat and both sauces were amazing! We also had some delicious juice that they had made. For desert we had a poppy seed cake. Don't get me wrong, I like lemon poppy seed muffins and poppy seed chicken, but the only flavor this cake had was poppy seed flavor. And I'm not too fond of that. However, the chocolate on the outside of it was delectable. 

The family was so fun! Emilija is the girl whose house we were at. She has to little brother, Raffle and Lukash. Lukash was the life of the party! He is 5 and he had so much energy! It was so fun getting to play with him. Raffle is only 1 and he was the happiest baby I've ever seen. He went to all of us willingly. We got to see Emilija come to life at home. It was such a fun thing to do. Her parents were so nice, too! They made us feel so welcome. Their house had such a warm, loving environment. We all just wanted to stay there forever. Oh and her house was so cool! I want one like it. 

Later that week, one of the teachers got sick, so I ended up teaching the primary kids for her. I discovered that I really did miss teaching. It's so fun spending time with the kids. We made snow flakes (something I didn't know how to do before) and we played a game. Hopefully the kids had just as much fun as I did! 

Then, to top off the week, we had our last vacation to Krakow, Poland. I had already been there before, too, but I was excited to go again. We took an overnight bus to Warsaw, and from Warsaw we took a bus to Krakow. We got there in the afternoon and headed to our hostel. We stopped at a market to get some food on the way so we wouldn't have to eat out. After eating and settling in, we went out to see the town. We found a bunch of shops that were super cheap and, of course, we had to get some ice cream. I was able to get a ton of souvenirs there. It was great! Saturday I spent most of the day in the hostel while the  girls went to Auschwitz. Since I went last year I didn't really want to go again. That night we went around town as well, just looking around. Sunday was our picture taking/exploring day since it was finally light outside when we were walking around. We found the dragon statue that is very popular in Krakow and we even ended up in mass, which I thought was pretty cool. 

At one point, I was waiting outside of a store with Shelbi and Joni and a haggard looking hunchbacked old man approached us and started talking to us in Polish. We had no idea what he was saying, he just kept going on and on with what he was talking about. He kept inching closer to me and I was getting a little nervous. Then, he grabbed my hand and kissed it tenderly. He then did it to Shelbi and Joni, too. To shock us even more, he dropped down to his knees and started fake sobbing and then laughing. After, he popped back up, grabbed our hands again, kissed them, and walked away. It was one of the strangest, most hilarious thing I have ever seen. 

That afternoon we started our journey back home. More long bus rides. I do not even want to think the amount of time I have spent all together on bus rides. Thinking about how high the number is hurts my heart. 

The next big journey made will be the one home.