One of the main differences between holidays in America and Russia is with whom you spend them. The majority American holidays are centered around family time, when many generations come together to spend the day together. In Russia, on the other hand, Anastasia rarely spent the days with her parents but rather her friends. In her words, "holidays in Russia are just excuses to drink."
That led us to discuss American holidays such as Halloween and July 4th. While they are celebrated for a reason, many simply use these holidays as a reason to throw parties. Maybe we are more similar to Russia than we thought?
Anastasia then brought up the debate over the drinking age in the US. She had done some research on it and the United States is one of only three or four countries that have 21 as their drinking age. She also thought it was very funny that Americans' 21st birthdays are celebrated so greatly because they've most likely been drinking for years at that point, so it's really nothing new. I had never thought about that aspect of a 21st birthday. It is meant to celebrate the ability to do something you've never done; though at this point, it's being able to do it legally.
The last topic we discussed was the difference in ages of cities in Russia and America. I mentioned the bicentennial and she countered with the fact that Kaliningrad is over 700 years old, so she won that one.
It must be amazing to live in a city, country even, with such a rich and long history. Even visiting New York astounds me - every place there used to be something else. Here we so easily throw out the old in favor of new, shiny, state-of-the-art buildings. It must be simply awesome to live in a place where history surrounds you at all times.
Well, the moral of our conversation today was: Thanksgiving is a great holiday, readily adopted by the foreign exchange students. Who doesn't love a day off to just eat? So to my millions of blog readers, happy Thanksgiving to one and all!
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