vegaroo!

I know this is an Australian blog, and that as a vegan there are certainly plenty of reasons to hate the American holiday of Thanksgiving. But as an American ex-pat myself, currently spending time with my family in the states, after a really tough few days, I felt the need to write. I hope you’ll forgive this far-more-personal-than-usual post.

I came back to California with my boyfriend, for the first time since moving to Sydney 10 months ago and spent a wonderful week visiting friends in the Bay Area. We drank wine in gorgeous Napa Valley, took the requisite dorky photos in front of the Golden Gate bridge, ate 7 different types of burritos, and dined in some of San Francisco’s finest vegan restaurants. And then on Saturday night we got held up at gunpoint in Oakland.

It was a pretty traumatic experience, but luckily we made it out safe. Unfortunately along with our wallets, my phone, and camera, they also got my passport. Luckily I was able to get on a plane to Las Vegas where we’re spending Thanksgiving with my family. However, without a passport I can’t come back to Australia. We’ve made about a hundred teary phone calls, visited a number of government offices, and it sounds like I should get a new passport Tuesday, but there may be some additional complications with the new visa I am on.

To make matters worse, it’s become clear this will be my last Thanksgiving with my Grandma. In addition to driving me all over Nevada to sort out paperwork, my Mom has been arranging hospice care and cremation services.

Anyway, all this is to say, it had not exactly been the most cheerful holiday around here. But I have had a lot of time to reflect on the last few days, and it’s made me realise just how lucky I really am, and how thankful I am this year.

I have some amazing friends in the Bay Area who went above and beyond to help us out, make sure we were well-fed, and generally lend their support. A million thanks to Laura, Jonas, Sammie, Tom, and Greg especially! And all of our friends back in Sydney have been wonderful, sending messages of support. We miss you all!

Though it’s tough for my family in a lot of ways right now, my parents are two of the strongest people I know, and we’re banding together to get through everything together and still laughing, relaxing, and eating. We cooked up an all-vegan dinner last night, and tonight they’re going nearly all vegan.

And a wonderful Aussie bloke named Jim changed my life this year, with his optimism, generosity, and humour. Without him by my side I’d probably be a mess right now.

I can’t wait to get back to my new home in Australia, but in the mean time I’m celebrating all of these amazing people and things in my life right now.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 26th, 2010 at 7:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.