Thanksgiving with Jonas

I am back in MI now, after spending a spectacular five days with Jonas, his family, and our CA friends.

As usual, Jonas was determined to squeeze in as much tourist activity as possible, so each day was packed with eating, shopping, and visiting people and places.

I had more "real" food in CA than I have had in the past few months. (My usual meals tend to be easy snacks, like cereal, vegetarian chicken nuggets, string cheese, yogurt, etc.) But in CA, I was treated to balanced meals of real homemade Chinese food (yum). And we also went out for Chinese, Japanese, and Italian food. Oh, and of course Thanksgiving dinner was a huge feast. (Jonas told his mom that she could have fed the entire neighborhood with her dinner, and he was not exaggerating.)

We also met up with Jonas' friends and some of our friends from grad school who now live in CA. It is comforting to know that when I do move to CA, I will already have some very nice friends who live close by.

And of course, Jonas took me sightseeing and shopping everywhere, including SF Chinatown, Japantown, Berkeley, the Great Mall, and even San Francisco Public Library!

But the best part of the entire trip was spending time with Jonas.

Traveling to and from CA was pretty rough. The roads were glare ice on the way to the airport in MI and the plane had to be de-iced before takeoff. The trip back was worse. There were storms in the south that led to two very bumpy plane rides and long delays. On the way back to MI, I left Jonas' house at 6AM PAC and did not get to my apartment until 9:30PM EST.

When I got home, I asked myself, was all of that traveling worth the few days I was able to spend with Jonas?

The answer is yes. Just barely... but yes. :-)