feliz navidad (clap clap clap clap..etc)
technically 25 diciembre, 2006 2:54 am
today (technically yesterday) it finally started to feel like christmas. i guess it was more like last night, even. last night, i sang many christmas carols and chanukah songs to myself, played virtual dreidel online, and made latkes and applesauce for my family, both from scratch! the smell and the taste of the latkes just suddenly, finally, made me feel like its even december. when i was at supermaxi (its like safeway) getting my ingredients there was a santa (papa noel) and elves taking pictures with small children. i watched the last 10 minutes of the remake of miracle on 34th street in spanish, and made sure to go over every scene of the old one that i remember in my head, and its a wonderful life, and even some of nightmare before christmas. the town is decorated a bit more now, even though the houses still dont have christmas lights (just trees with lights) there are lights strung up hanging across some streets downtown, and these big flashy things that remind me of zoolights, on avenida solano (the major street that goes straight from downtown to a couple blocks away from my house). (now 12:20 pm) i got a package in the mail from gramma, and the contents was wrapped, which brought me back to all the decembers past, getting boxes of wrapped stuff to put under the tree from all my grandparents. i woke up (yesterday) and the radio was playing christmas carols, both in english and spanish, and it didnt really stop until i got into bed at 2:54 this morning. i went to a parade that is apparently world-famous (there were a lot of tourists there) called "pase del niño," or "pass of the child" as it says on the brochoure (sp!) i was given. people (i think mostly native people) save up all year and work all year on these extravagant outfits for their little kids and horses, donkeys/mules, trucks (floats), etc. the hustle and bustle was astonishing, i think its the fullest downtown is all year. we met up with a bunch of other exchange students and watched the parade and wandered, bought a lot of little ice cream things (basically frozen go-gurt and otter pops) from the blue-and-green-jumpsuit people. chase (new friend = AFS exchange = michigan), jacob (rotary = texas), and i went into a new bookstore thats catty-corner from my school, which has a coffeeshop in it and is small but fancy (and quite expensive) with books in spanish, english, french, and german. it was actually quite remarkable we ended up there, because i had just had a dream the previous night about being in Powell's. later i went home and watched the grinch (the live-action version). then i went to my host grandma's house, on my mom's side, for the first of two christmas dinners.
the first dinner:
a pleasant amount of people were there, including the parents of my host grandma (i guess me host great-grandparents), and 2 little boys who are my cousins. the older one reminds me of duncan, mallory's little brother, when he was like 5, but less consistently annoying, and the younger one doesnt talk yet but wobbles around and picks up everything within reach and throws it on the floor. the meal, which started at about 8, consisted of: *ecuadorian tamales, which i was told were different from other tamales, but i think thats just because they have more vegetables. *what seemed to be three main dishes, -lasagne, -chicken, and -ham (with a bone in it), all of which were perfect and delicious. (and yes i almost spelled ham with a j because in spanish it is jamon. XD) *rice (of course. rice with every meal. really.) with herbs so it was fancier than usual. *salad! with delicious onions that had been soaked in lime juice and herbs. *wine.
after dinner we sat in the living room and opened gifts. of course the younger you are the more gifts you get, so lucas (the baby) got the most, closely followed by the little cousins. i got a two-piece sweater thing, one piece of which i wore to the second dinner.
the second dinner:
i walked into the house and was greeted by my other toddling cousin dressed as an angel. he has curly blonde hair and was absoutely the epitome of cuteness. i wanted to get a picture but he went to sleep before i did. this meal started at about midnight, and consisted of the following: *turkey- apparently this is "traditional" to eat on christmas eve here, as it seems to be in the US... *peas with little chunks of cheese mixed in. the most popular cheese here is kind of rubbery-looking and feeling but it is good with certain vegetables. like corn. and these things called Aves i think.. *potatoes (boil 'em mash 'em stick 'em in a stew). *salad drenched (i mean like soaking) in some sort of salad dressing. its supposed to be like that though. *rice, of course. *gravy. kind of. really good but not very.. appealing looking. *champagne. then for dessert they had cake with some sort of nuts in it. i didnt have any because i dont really know the names of nuts in spanish and i didnt want to get sick. instead i had this big piece of sweet bread with little bits of candied fruits in it. it was pretty good but so dense. i was already quite full from having dinner twice, and the effort of chewing this bread and swallowing was almost too much for me. a glass of milk helped wash down a mass of crumbs (several times) that just kept caking in my mouth no matter how much i chewed.
after dinner we exchanged presents again. lucas didnt get nearly as many gifts, but there are 3 cousins on that side of the family ranging from 5th to 7th grade to bear the brunt of the gifts. they handed out all the presents from under the tree, as seems to be custom in many cultures. well the cultures that have christmas... this was a very christmas-y scene to me, with the floor covered with wrapping paper and gifts. an electronic foot messager for my host grandpa. i got another sweater (yay)(i wont be cold on a regular basis anymore! haha), earrings, two necklaces (one matches the earrings), a scarf, and some body spray stuff.
on christmas morning i ate a lot of chocolate that i had bought earlier, keeping with the tradition of having a ton of chocolate for breakfast christmas morning (although it was the latest i've slept on christmas for years... actually ever i think. 11:00) and i opened the present from my real gramma. with my new green christmas socks and fuzzy sweater, xavier and i went to his parents' house for leftoevers, and isabel went to her mom's house for leftovers. all in all, i'd say it was a pretty good christmas, with minimal homesickness. the required amount of homesickness was there, but it wasnt as bad as i had dreaded. (now 5 enero/jan) thanks to the good ol' reliable (hah!) mail system, i got a christmas card from (vermont) elyssa a couple days ago, the christmas presents i was supposed to give yesterday, and am still waiting on 3+ other packages that i know of. hah. oh well, i still havent sent anyone anything.
¡Feliz Navidad!
today (technically yesterday) it finally started to feel like christmas. i guess it was more like last night, even. last night, i sang many christmas carols and chanukah songs to myself, played virtual dreidel online, and made latkes and applesauce for my family, both from scratch! the smell and the taste of the latkes just suddenly, finally, made me feel like its even december. when i was at supermaxi (its like safeway) getting my ingredients there was a santa (papa noel) and elves taking pictures with small children. i watched the last 10 minutes of the remake of miracle on 34th street in spanish, and made sure to go over every scene of the old one that i remember in my head, and its a wonderful life, and even some of nightmare before christmas. the town is decorated a bit more now, even though the houses still dont have christmas lights (just trees with lights) there are lights strung up hanging across some streets downtown, and these big flashy things that remind me of zoolights, on avenida solano (the major street that goes straight from downtown to a couple blocks away from my house). (now 12:20 pm) i got a package in the mail from gramma, and the contents was wrapped, which brought me back to all the decembers past, getting boxes of wrapped stuff to put under the tree from all my grandparents. i woke up (yesterday) and the radio was playing christmas carols, both in english and spanish, and it didnt really stop until i got into bed at 2:54 this morning. i went to a parade that is apparently world-famous (there were a lot of tourists there) called "pase del niño," or "pass of the child" as it says on the brochoure (sp!) i was given. people (i think mostly native people) save up all year and work all year on these extravagant outfits for their little kids and horses, donkeys/mules, trucks (floats), etc. the hustle and bustle was astonishing, i think its the fullest downtown is all year. we met up with a bunch of other exchange students and watched the parade and wandered, bought a lot of little ice cream things (basically frozen go-gurt and otter pops) from the blue-and-green-jumpsuit people. chase (new friend = AFS exchange = michigan), jacob (rotary = texas), and i went into a new bookstore thats catty-corner from my school, which has a coffeeshop in it and is small but fancy (and quite expensive) with books in spanish, english, french, and german. it was actually quite remarkable we ended up there, because i had just had a dream the previous night about being in Powell's. later i went home and watched the grinch (the live-action version). then i went to my host grandma's house, on my mom's side, for the first of two christmas dinners.
the first dinner:
a pleasant amount of people were there, including the parents of my host grandma (i guess me host great-grandparents), and 2 little boys who are my cousins. the older one reminds me of duncan, mallory's little brother, when he was like 5, but less consistently annoying, and the younger one doesnt talk yet but wobbles around and picks up everything within reach and throws it on the floor. the meal, which started at about 8, consisted of: *ecuadorian tamales, which i was told were different from other tamales, but i think thats just because they have more vegetables. *what seemed to be three main dishes, -lasagne, -chicken, and -ham (with a bone in it), all of which were perfect and delicious. (and yes i almost spelled ham with a j because in spanish it is jamon. XD) *rice (of course. rice with every meal. really.) with herbs so it was fancier than usual. *salad! with delicious onions that had been soaked in lime juice and herbs. *wine.
after dinner we sat in the living room and opened gifts. of course the younger you are the more gifts you get, so lucas (the baby) got the most, closely followed by the little cousins. i got a two-piece sweater thing, one piece of which i wore to the second dinner.
the second dinner:
i walked into the house and was greeted by my other toddling cousin dressed as an angel. he has curly blonde hair and was absoutely the epitome of cuteness. i wanted to get a picture but he went to sleep before i did. this meal started at about midnight, and consisted of the following: *turkey- apparently this is "traditional" to eat on christmas eve here, as it seems to be in the US... *peas with little chunks of cheese mixed in. the most popular cheese here is kind of rubbery-looking and feeling but it is good with certain vegetables. like corn. and these things called Aves i think.. *potatoes (boil 'em mash 'em stick 'em in a stew). *salad drenched (i mean like soaking) in some sort of salad dressing. its supposed to be like that though. *rice, of course. *gravy. kind of. really good but not very.. appealing looking. *champagne. then for dessert they had cake with some sort of nuts in it. i didnt have any because i dont really know the names of nuts in spanish and i didnt want to get sick. instead i had this big piece of sweet bread with little bits of candied fruits in it. it was pretty good but so dense. i was already quite full from having dinner twice, and the effort of chewing this bread and swallowing was almost too much for me. a glass of milk helped wash down a mass of crumbs (several times) that just kept caking in my mouth no matter how much i chewed.
after dinner we exchanged presents again. lucas didnt get nearly as many gifts, but there are 3 cousins on that side of the family ranging from 5th to 7th grade to bear the brunt of the gifts. they handed out all the presents from under the tree, as seems to be custom in many cultures. well the cultures that have christmas... this was a very christmas-y scene to me, with the floor covered with wrapping paper and gifts. an electronic foot messager for my host grandpa. i got another sweater (yay)(i wont be cold on a regular basis anymore! haha), earrings, two necklaces (one matches the earrings), a scarf, and some body spray stuff.
on christmas morning i ate a lot of chocolate that i had bought earlier, keeping with the tradition of having a ton of chocolate for breakfast christmas morning (although it was the latest i've slept on christmas for years... actually ever i think. 11:00) and i opened the present from my real gramma. with my new green christmas socks and fuzzy sweater, xavier and i went to his parents' house for leftoevers, and isabel went to her mom's house for leftovers. all in all, i'd say it was a pretty good christmas, with minimal homesickness. the required amount of homesickness was there, but it wasnt as bad as i had dreaded. (now 5 enero/jan) thanks to the good ol' reliable (hah!) mail system, i got a christmas card from (vermont) elyssa a couple days ago, the christmas presents i was supposed to give yesterday, and am still waiting on 3+ other packages that i know of. hah. oh well, i still havent sent anyone anything.
¡Feliz Navidad!