Thanksgivng for cold times sake

The time has come to update the blog. I’ve been a little lazy so it’s about time to kick it into gear, I guess. I accidentally put this and the last blog out of order, but whatever. Either way, let’s talk turkey
Being far away from home, it’s the holidays like Thanksgiving that can really take a toll on somebody’s toll. Far and away, the worst period for an American abroad is the period between the end of Thanksgiving and right after New Year’s. It’s a malaise that just sneaks up on you then slowly snowballs until all of the joy of life is sucked out of you. Of course, this feeling doesn’t persist forever, but it can make life miserable.
One of the best medications is to simply hang out with people you share the same predicament, which luckily Akmola Oblast and North Kazakhstan Oblast has about roughly 20 volunteers in the same state of being within easy train ride from each other. So, we all gathered in Zerenda, one of the resort towns in Akmola oblast. As we all trickled in, there were plenty of handshakes to older volunteers and warm hugs to all the familiar faces from PST. And then we proceeded to try and drain the town of all the beer in town…
Well, not exactly. I jest because the stores around has had only a given amount of beer and the fact that 20-odd people coming in to town and looking to buy up bottles of beer for 2 days of revelry leads me to at least that the owners of these stores were very happy with our many purchases, but maybe the rest of the thirsty populous wasn’t. Eh, we were all reasonable, so it was a good time.
So, the plan of it was very simple. We basically chatted around over a few beers, played Ultimate Snow Frisbee, which I’m glad to say the amazing team of Myles, Holly, Sholpan, Niall and yours truly creamed the other team, and made thanksgiving. There were massive amounts of stuffing, turkey shashlik (basically marinated kebabs), mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, salad, fruit salad, pumpkin pie and chocolate bread. Any calories that may or may not have been lost during the Ultimate Frisbee match were officially gained back, and possibly tripled, during that feast. After toasts by everybody, some of us retired to the banya to clean ourselves and just chill in ridiculously scalding environments, which as some of you may have already divined from my previous posts is extraordinary. But literally the best part of it was just being around so many people and just talking in English with people who understand your position and can relate to you. So much of what you have to do here is diplomacy, trying to figure out if what you do and say is politically correct in new surroundings, making sure that you are understood instead of just having a makeshift human bobblehead nodding at you, worrying about whether you’re having an impact. In short, to relax, just plain relax. That’s definitely what I was thankful for this Thanksgiving.