Thanksgiving treats

I'm just back after four days of heaven...atleast four days that felt like it. After the rigorous 3 weeks of work here, I badly needed a break, and Thanksgiving (this last Thursday) and its associated hols couldn't have come at a better time. By the way, Thanksgiving is officially the start of the holiday season here - I can feel X'Mas in the air already! Anyway, coming back, I knew it was the only 4 days I was gonna be free whilst I was here, so I decided to make the most of it. On Wednesday night, I made an instant decision to visit relatives in New Jersey. So at around 7am on Thursday morning, I made my way to Chinatown. Caught a bus from there to New York Penn Station. Cheapest mode of long-distance public transport here I tell you - just 20$! I'd hoped to make it to NYC at around noon so that I could catch the last bits of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, but alas, very bad weather, and very, very bad traffic put paid to those hopes, and I ended up reaching NYC at around 4pm in the evening! Caught the NJ Transit Line train to Newark Penn Station, and had my uncle pick me up from there. Many relatives whom I'd never seen had gathered at his place for the Thanksgiving lunch feast and for meeting me too, but they all ended up waiting for me for over four hours, and then finishing their food and heading back to their homes even before I reached Newark! We finally reached my uncle's place at 7pm (12 hours after I'd started from Maryland).

So anyway, I've been at my uncle's house the last 3 days - being treated like a prince and feeling like one too. My uncle has two adorable kids, boys, aged 14 and 8. I spent all my time with them, playing board games like Monopoly all day long with the little guy (who was so happy cos I kept losing to him!), playing Madden NFL with the boys on their PS2, and getting routed badly (I'm still learning the game - it has sooooooo many bloody rules- even more than cricket!), watching Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon all day long, munching on brownies and cookies and other candy and so on. So much so that I started feeling like a 10-yr old again. No Kiddin! When they were tired and went to sleep, I would play ping-pong or pool with their dad. All of us even went for house-to-house X'Mas Carol singing yesterday! (First time I'm seeing it done in Nov itself!) Phew! Pretty hectic I say!

But I feel so rejuvenated now.
Work? 25 hours a day and 8 days a week?
I say - Bring It On.

Ohh by the way...NYC still rocks - me loves it! me loves it! :) :)