A bit of home

Today, after much frustration due to a lack of information, I went to dinner at the house of an english tutor of a friend of Emma's. Confusing, no?
His name is Tony. He's about 60 years old, originally from England, spent 25 years in Canada and is now living in Thailand married to an extremely educated thai woman. We were invited over for steak.
Tony is obviously from the upper class of Britain ( you can tell by his accent) and reminds me of Penny (my violin teacher) in so many ways. It was comforting to be around him.
His wife had traveled in Oregon and knew where Portland was and asked if I had been to Astoria. She actually had been to OREGON! It was so nice to be able to talk about the mountains and the ocean and skiing and be around people that actually knew what I was talking about because they had been there.
The steak was great, and there was salad and steamed vegetables. Tony promised us cheese as a dessert. After dinner, out came the cheese and during a conversation about karaoke, Tony heard that I was a fan of stefan grapelli. The next thing I know, he's going upstairs, and finding cd's of music for us to listen to.
He puts in the cd and we're guessing which singer is on now, ella, billy or sarah. We go back in time to Bessy and Ida. I'm in heaven.
Emma's friend from school has to go home to eat dinner with her family (after eating a GIGANTIC steak) and Gale, tony's wife drives her home. On her way back she picked up a "treat" for us. I assumed the white box holds a cake, but as it is opened I gasp in disbelief. There are roast chestnuts inside.
Tonight was blissful, it was western culture that I appreciate. Although I love eating crab, sardines, sticky rice, bamboo, mint, curry and chili powder while listening to thai music, a bit of home was welcome.
The great thing about Tony's house is that it has... an oven. Emma and I are welcome to use it to bake or cook whenever we like, as long as we give them two or three days warning. After I complained about my inability to make kugel due to a lack of cream cheese, Tony asked, "you mean philidelphia? Or cottage cheese? "
Emma is the one to gasp this time. I am simply speechless.
Emma: "You HAVE cream cheese?!?"
Me: "............"
Tony simply stands up, walks to the fridge and pulls out a package. "I'm sorry that I don't have any bagels, but here are some more crackers."
I shouldn't have eaten so much, but when you haven't had cream cheese, chestnuts, cheddar or decent crackers for 6 weeks, it was feast now or miss it later. So emma and I both ate until we almost felt sick. We both decided that tomorrow is a no bread day. Probably the whole week. I'll be eating a lot of soup.
I was also given an Ian McEwan book that I can't wait to read. My reading material has been the same book for the past 5 weeks. I have actually memorized some parts simply because I've read it so many times.
Tomorrow, I don't have any classes at all. I hope I can leave school and run errands. I need to make a trip to the bank, the post office and I also need to buy gifts for the holidays. The ground shipping takes three months so I need to find my father that Rolex fast.