It's the start of my long weekend! I don't have class tomorrow or on Monday, so I have a 4 day weekend to enjoy. I thought about going away for a short trip but ultimately it didn't work out. That's probably a good thing - I really need to get caught up on my readings.

This past weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving. My friends from around the world came over Sunday night and I made them a classic Canadian dish: poutine! The poutine wasn't as good as at home, but I still thought it tasted great, and my friends enjoyed it too. After that we had cake and ice cream and played one of my favourite games, Apples to Apples. I had a lot of fun and I was happy to share something from home with my friends here.

On a related note, I spoke to a girl on Tuesday who said that pumpkin had just come into the grocery store that day. Grr!

Tuesday was an exciting day in Reykjavik because of the lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower and the LennonOno Grant for Peace ceremony. As I understand it, Yoko Ono has a foundation which awards a prize to a small number of people based on their efforts to bring peace to the world. This year, Lady Gaga was getting an award from the foundation, so both Lady Gaga and Yoko Ono were in Iceland this week! 

I didn't get to go to the award ceremony, but I did go to the lighting of the Peace Tower. The Imagine Peace Tower is on the island of Viðey just off the coast of Reykjavik. Yoko Ono had it built to honour John Lennon a couple of years ago, and every year, the tower is lit up between Lennon's birthday (October 9) and the day he died (December 8). Tuesday night I took the ferry to Viðey and saw the lighting ceremony. I got to hear Yoko Ono speak, which was pretty thrilling. The tower is quite impressive - it shoots beams of light straight upwards. It was a pain getting home, since the ferry isn't equipped to move such a large number of people, and it took hours to get off the island. It was definitely worth going though. When I got home I could see the light streaming upwards, and it was a great view.

 Here's Yoko Ono at the ceremony on Viðey.

 The Imagine Peace Tower after the lights went on.

 It's not a great picture, but see that beam of light in the sky? That's the Peace Tower from far away.

While I'm adding pictures, here's a shot of a great rainbow I saw today!