Thanksgiving

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Two nights ago Camillo came home from Shenyang. I was very glad to see him. It was Wednesday so I had to work the majority of the day but when I was finished I called to ask Eason if he wanted me to come over and we had a little debate "you tell me whether to come" "no, you come if you want" "you tell me" etc. I finally decided to go. That night L Salon was decorating itself for Christmas. I walked in and Kast was standing on a ladder in the back fixing what looked like a huge silver ring (I'm still not sure what it's supposed to be). Some of the other boys including Camillo were standing on chairs in the front fixing christmas wreaths and decorations over the light fixtures. It was really a great little time. I got a little bored after a while since they didn't want me to stand on rolling chairs to put up decorations. Camillo told me that he had some wine for us to drink and that I should go home and he'd meet me there but I decided to wait for him so we could walk together. After a little while we spent the night studying, kind of semi curled next to each other. It was really nice cause he didn't complain about my being there at all. He did tell me not to ask what he was saying when he speaks the Guan Dong language so I stopped asking him and he asked me why I was being so quiet. I told him it's because I didn't understand what they were saying and that he was being silly.

Yesterday Craig and I spent the majority of the day together. We met one of his friends who he met on-line and then went out to lunch together (I think her name was Jemma). It was a semi-okay lunch. After lunch we went shopping for some dinner sets for Sunny and Liuxiu's wedding and Craig bought some for himself. I bought some gifts for some people back home (although I need to do a lot more shopping). Then we went over and I tried to buy an English book for Camillo to use when we're not having classes together - I totally failed in my search though. I think that's the main reason why Rockies (and some other schools around here) create their own books. Craig, Jemma and I sat and had a little bit of coffee and then we met one of Jemma's friends and went up to his office where we had my first very formal tea. We all sat around a little coffee table and there was a huge wooden slightly shaped plate on the table with tons of little tiny cups for tea and small teapots. The first thing he did was put the leaves in the teapot and pour the first little bit of boiling water over our cups and the teapot and then dump it out. He then filled up the teapot with boiling water and strained it into a glass teapot and from there poured it into our cups. He then started over by filling the teapot with boiling water. He did this process many many times and we drank tons of little cups of tea. After a while we had to go and meet our colleagues at All's Well. All's Well was having a Thanksgiving buffet - literally. They had really awesome bread rolls, turkey and real cheese (which we were thrilled about cause we haven't had them in a long time - I ate a lot of these things) and then tons of dishes of many different things - salads, sushi, cut potatoes with garlic and other things on them, tons of desserts, and many other things. It was really good and we really did eat our hearts out (as one should on Thanksgiving). Afterwards Helen, Lucy and I went window shopping for a little bit. We then called Camillo, Hui and Eason about 100 times (because I swear they were talking in cryptic code) "we're busy, we can't come" "we're busy, we'll come later" "we're busy". Finally after a long time Hui told me that they had class (which if they'd told me that in the beginning I wouldn't have bothered them but Chinese people - like Indians seem to like to talk around things and not tell them exactly how they are). Then Hui told me that I should call when I get there and again when I knew what room number we were in (so of course I had to call about a trillion more times to get that through). Anyways, in the end we met them at a KTV (which is really a shame since I don't really enjoy KTV's and neither do the boys). I don't like the place because everyone ends up sitting around watching TV while they listen to one person sing (which to me isn't that much fun - it'd be much more fun in my opinion to just go watch a movie). So we got a little bit of complaints from the boys (and my colleagues got a few complaints from me). But in the end we had a bit of fun, everyone was just tired. So we decided to call it an early night and all left at midnight. The last thing Camillo did before he left really made my whole night - he gave me a hug in front of Hui (his boss), Kast (his older brother) and Eason (his best friend). So from what I know of Chinese terms that really made our relationship official.

Today I woke up really freaking early to call my parents and my dad's family. It was so early that the old women hadn't even started their morning exercises when I went out to buy another phone card. But I still had to play a bit of frogger getting across the street. After I got off the phone I called Ishani and JH. Both of them were very happy to hear from me. I asked them who I was in the beginning and they didn't know until they flipped out because they thought it was me. It was really nice to talk to people from home. After I got off the phone with everyone I went to the gym and from there to the Salon where I made a deal with them about payment for washing and drying my hair so many times (which it's about time I did). Then I got my hair washed and dryed and went down to have lunch with Hui. It was our first lunch together just the two of us. It was really nice because we got to talk about Camillo and my liking him and a little bit about how I should act around the Salon (which was good for me). I got really homesick for India after that though. When I was in India all of the people around me would flip out if they didn't see me for a day. Here if they see me too many days in a row they get tired of me (which I really wish they wouldn't do but I understand so I'm going to change a little).

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