Torrey Boland had not been home to Littleton, Colo., in two years, but this Thanksgiving was different.
"I wasn't planning on going home, but I found a really cheap ticket at the last minute, probably because people don't want to fly right now," said Boland, a Wharton senior. "And with everything that's happened, it felt like a good time to be with my family."
Whether it was an hour drive on the Jersey Turnpike or a cross-country airplane flight, Penn students -- even those who usually do not spend the holidays with family -- scrambled to get home for the first Thanksgiving after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Despite a heightened level of apprehension among travelers and tighter airport and train station security following the attacks, students altered their plans to celebrate with their families during the holiday weekend.
Thanksgiving held special meaning this year in light of the terrorist attacks and the war abroad. Firemen and soldiers were thanked during grace at dinner tables across the nation, and there was a renewed sense of pride when crowds sang the national anthem before the weekend's football games. Crowds swelled on the streets of Manhattan for the 75th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where colorful floats brightened the spirits of thousands of New Yorkers still reeling from the attacks.
Many students, having been away at school since Sept. 11, did not know what Thanksgiving would be like in the wake of tragedy, when some are finding it hard to be thankful.
For Boland, the weekend's events were nothing out of the ordinary as Thanksgiving goes, but were nonetheless imbued with new value.
"It was a normal Thanksgiving," Boland said. "No one did or said anything different than usual, but I appreciated it more just being with my family."
Suzie Richter discovered a newfound patriotism in her hometown of Cheltenham, north of Philadelphia, when she visited her family for Thanksgiving last weekend. It was the first time she has been home this academic year.
"Everyone in my township has a flag on their door," the College senior said.
But Richter, like many students, said that her holiday was not any different than in previous years.
"It was a pretty normal Thanksgiving," Richter said. "It was nice to be with the family, and to get away from campus for a little while."
Many families took Thanksgiving as an opportunity to express gratitude for their safety during these violent times.
"The one time we mentioned what happened was when my cousin said grace," College junior Ryan McGuinness said. "He expressed thanks that we hadn't been directly affected by the attacks, and extended his support for those who had."
But no matter the degree to which students' holidays were influenced by recent events, most who had to travel any distance to get home felt the effects of tighter airport security and traveler apprehension.
Mariana Raskosky and Ana Merlano do not celebrate Thanksgiving -- Raskosky is Guatemalan and Merlano is Colombian -- but that did not exclude them from the trials of holiday travel on their trip from Philadelphia to their hometown of Miami.
While traveling is rarely easy during the Thanksgiving weekend, the two College sophomores noticed that this year's airport routine was significantly more unpleasant and time-consuming as a result of increased security.
"The airports were crazy," Raskosky said. "The lines were longer, they opened all of our bags and they made some people take off their shoes."
"When we arrived in Miami, there were men with rifles everywhere," Merlano added. "And we didn't get meals on the plane because they couldn't give us knives."
Many student travelers chose not to fly, either out of the fear of terrorism or simply irritation at the prospect of waiting in line for hours and getting searched. Amtrak trains were the more popular mode of transportation.
Many students found that booking a train was more difficult than usual this year.
"I could only get a ticket for a train that left late at night," said College junior Blake Harrison, who travelled to Boston for Thanksgiving.
The ride home on Sunday was very stressful for many Amtrak customers -- a derailed freight train near New York City knocked out power for Amtrak trains on a nine-mile stretch, delaying many trains for several hours.
"Amtrak was all screwed up," said McGuinness, who was supposed to take the train back to Philadelphia on Sunday evening. "My train was delayed indefinitely, so I took New Jersey transit and didn't make it back until [yesterday] morning."
