Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy the Turkey!

Today, we're celebrating for the very first time Thanksgiving, the American holiday that is even bigger than Christmas.

To many Americans, Thanksgiving means going home for a traditional turkey dinner - traditional meaning lots and lots of food. Of course this is paired with watching TV: starting with Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and afterwards a football game. We started the day very early since we wanted to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade from the front row. Unfortunately, it turned out that waking up at 6.30 am (the show started at 9 am) doesn't secure you front row seats but we did get a good view of the parade (and consequently a lot of photos - to be posted soon). If you've never heard of Macy's Thanksgiving Parade before, think huge floating balloons between Manhattan skyscrapers - who wouldn't want to get up at 6.30 am to see that?

Right now, we're on our way to Washington D.C. with the Bolt Bus (wifi of course). Our American friends invited us for a real traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

And after Thanksgiving comes "Black Friday" - it sounds terrible (and for some, it actually ìs terrible) but it just means a day of big discounts. Most stores open very early in the morning (4 or 5 am) and some even open the doors just after midnight. Shoppers go crazy on Black Friday since apparently you can get some really good deals. And when I say crazy, you can take that quite litteraly: see for example this youtube movie. Last year, a Wal-Mart employee even died after the poor guy opened the door and was trampled by the very eager shoppers! Now that I think of it, I pity the fool who stands between me and my 50% discount Prada handbag!