My First Thanksgiving in America

My first Thanksgiving in the US was six years ago when I worked in San Francisco for an internship.

I was living in Nob Hill at the time. I didn’t know many people in the city and the friends I did have went back home to celebrate with their families.

I didn’t have any plans for Thanksgiving. My plan for Thanksgiving day was to do some errands, read a book, and get some takeout for dinner.

While I’m used to spending time on my own, something about spending Thanksgiving alone didn’t feel right. On Thanksgiving day, I had lunch by myself and I was overcome with a sense of loneliness and wished I had my family with me to celebrate.

Later that afternoon, I was hanging out in the common room of my building, when someone sat right behind me. We started talking. His name is Zach and he’s from Minnesota, studied at Tufts University, and just recently moved to San Francisco. I told him that I was from Toronto and I was living in the city for an internship. It was both our first Thanksgiving spent away from our families. He asked me if I had any dinner plans, I said no. We then walked around looking for a restaurant. Most places were closed for Thanksgiving, but we stumbled on a Japanese restaurant that was open. We were the only patrons there. We had Sushi for dinner and split a bottle of sake to celebrate.

It was a wonderful evening.

I’m grateful that I bumped into Zack and celebrated my first Thanksgiving in the US with him.