foreign adventures

Today was a really good day. Lots of fun was had. Lots of laughs and smiles shared. Mariely and I met our newfound friends, Andre (from Brasil) and Peng (from China) in town for some cooking adventures. All together we were really a multicultural group: China, Mexico, Brasil, and Canada. It's actually quite funny how all the foreigners seem to find eachother. Mariely and I were just having tea the other day when these two walked in and the instant we saw them we knew they weren't from Slovakia (the dark eyes, hair, and skin, is kind of a give away as %99 of Slovakia's population is Slovak and the remaining %1 are hungarian or ukranian. Let's just say it's not a very colorful country.) ANYWAYS....we got to talking and naturally we had a lot in common so a friendship was born. Andre is 19 and has been here for eight months already volunteering with a local organization that works with people with special needs (and hopefully I will get to volunteer here too...but thats another story) and Peng is 23 and has been here two years on and off working as an intern in an electronics company.
We decided (the four of us) that we should have an international night where we could each cook a dish unique to our countries. Tonight was dubbed the special night so we all met in the centre to hit up the grocery store. Who knew cooking a foreign dish could be such an adventure! Apparently Slovakia doesn't have a wide range of ingredients. We spent close to two hours roaming the aisles looking for cilantro (which just simply doesn't seem to exist in Slovakia), tortillas (the next best thing turned out to be crepes), and goood beef (which is near impossible to find). After we had purchased all the ingredients, or Slovak substitutes for the ingredients we needed we headed off to Peng's small student loft to cook. Now when I say small, student loft, you need to understand that is being kind. It was this tiny little attic suite where you pretty much sleep in the same place you eat, but regardless it would do the trick just fine. Or so we thought haha. This is when the adventures ensued...
I was going to attempt to make brownies but when I took a look at his oven I decided it would not be a wise choice to use it for more than one reason A) he had never used it before B) it was disgustingly dirty, with years and years of heaven knows what caked on to it and C) it was so old it was made in Czechoslovakia and that is never a good sign. So not knowing what else to do with my already mixed together brownie batter I put it in a microwavable dish and put it in the microwave. And guess what? It worked!!!! They actually turned out to be rather delicious surprise surprise. And then there was Mariely, representing Mexico, who tried to make guacamole from scratch. Unfortunately our cooking supplies was rather limited to we ended up taking turns mashing the avocados with a fork in a tooo small bowl but eventually we got it down to the right consistency. Then when it came to the spices we had to improvise a little bit. Tossing in a dash of salt, some chili, and some coriander. We ended up with coriander because we were looking for cilantro but we couldn't find any and so we decided Oregano was close enough but we couldn't find that either so we figured coriander was kind of close to Oregano. So the original aim kind of got lost in the translation but it ended up tasting pretty fantastic and thats all that matters really. So thats the appetizer and the desert. The main dish was created by Peng and was much less entertaining. As it turns out he is quite a talented chef so not too much went wrong and it was reaaaaaalllllllyyy delicious. It was noodles boiled and then fried tossed with vegetables and some meat. wonderful! especially after having eaten potatoes and pork for four months. The brasilian bought a really yummy melon to share....it had a really strange name that I can't remember but it was tasty as well.
Once all was prepared we sat down around the tiny table and dug in, or at least did our best to dig in because we were eating with chop sticks. I soon discovered I am not very good at the whole chopstick thing but it was really funny trying to get those noodles to stay on the stick long enough for me to slurp them up!

After our multi cultural feast we sat around and talked about a gazillion different things from the weather to Slovakia to food and it was really nice and interesting! I learned alot! For one I never realized just how cold Canada is! We looked up the average temperature of Brazil, Mexico, China, and Canada, and Edmonton was by far the coldest. When they saw that it got down to -40 they all couldn't even believe it, it was really cute actually. I also saw some really fantastic pictures of China and it made me want to visit there some day. Just another place to add to my list; which is getting rather lengthy.
Having gotten carried away talking mariely and I missed our bus at 830 which then meant we had to wait for our next one at 1030 which ended up being alright because we had a lot of fun talking and sharing stories. eventually we made our way to the bus stop to head on home and we even turned up 15 minutes early for our bus to make sure we didn't miss it (because it was the last one) and guess what? WE MISSED It!!!! I still can't believe it. The bus pulled in to pick us up, opened it's doors, Mariely pretty much had her foot on the step and I turned to say goodbye when beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep the doors closed and the bus drove off! I mean I really don't udnerstand how the bus driver didn't see that we were getting on the bus. I think we made it pretty clear what with mariely and Andre having to essentially jump backwards to avoid the doors from squishing them. All of this would have been fine, i've missed the bus on more than one occasion but this was the last bus. crap. In the end after re-reading the bus schedule too many times in hopes that it would change, we called a cab and it took us home.
And now here I am sitting in the kitchen with the music blarring (mariely and my host parents are out of town until later) dancing and helping Mariely prepare meat for TACOS! tomorrow. What a day.

ps. I SWITCH HOST HOMES TOMORROW OFFICIALLY! and then back to school on Monday....... :(