Comida, comida, comida

The time has been passing by really quickly in Mexico. These last few weeks I have been really enjoying getting to know the city better. I have been trying to experience as much of the city as possible as my time here quickly slips away. Yesterday we were able to go hiking in the mountains, which was super fun. It was amazing to be able to see a view of the city from above. Along the trail there were numerous signs against littering, advocating protecting nature. It was a beautiful hike, but my legs are definitely feeling it today.

Yesterday morning, we also went to a very cute café. We sat there for hours watching life in the city pass by. In the three hours we sat there, we saw an astounding amount of VW bugs, both vintage and new in an assortment of pastels and cherry reds.

On Friday night we went to a Mezcal festival. There was a huge array of samples not only of every kind of mezcal imaginable but also of many different kinds of foods, including, chocolate (my favorite of course), cheeses, moles and salsas (including grasshopper and worm salsa!).

Speaking of food, we have tried some interesting foods lately. The other day for lunch our host family made us little nopal sandwiches. Nopal is a type of cactus. So for lunch we had mashed beans and cheese between two cactus leaves with rice on the side. We also have been given cactus juice. I have to say that nopal doesn’t have a bad flavor, but I think it may be an acquired taste... Nopals also produce a fruit called Tuna. Among other things they use this fruit to make a flavor of ice cream called tuna and burnt milk. I was feeling especially daring the other day and decided to try it… That was not a good call. It was the worst taste I have ever experienced. It literally tasted like sweet, smoky BURNT milk… Not my favorite flavor, but it must also be an acquired taste because it is very popular here. Another interesting food I tried is called Dorilocos. My conversation partner from school took me to the town center to try them. They are a bag of doritos cut open, and smothered in Chamoy sauce (a sweet and sour chili sauce which isn’t too spicy) and shredded carrot and jicama (which is a bland light green vegetable), and topped with chili coated peanuts, gummy worms and of course more chili sauce. Shockingly despite all the contrasting flavors they were delicious. Although I had to eat them with a full bottle of water because they were incredibly salty.

My favorite traditional foods, are probably Chiles rellenos (peppers stuffed with blended bean sauce and cheese), Tlayudas (giant crispy tortillas that look almost like a pizza, covered in beans cheese and meat or in my case veggies), and tamales (which we often eat for breakfast).

Tlayudas It is interesting because we never really eat what we consider breakfast foods in the united states, instead our most frequent breakfast is quesadillas, with thick queso Oaxaqueno (that most resembles a richer, denser version of string cheese) and often squash blossoms. We have also got to try some traditional breakfast drinks such as champurrado, a very thick hot chocolate which has a gravy like consistency from the corn flour it is prepared with. They also have normal hot chocolate which is often prepared with water and is very rich, dark and cinnamony. In the market the other day we also tried some interesting baked goods, one of which was a dark red colored bread, which was soaked in wine. It was bright colored purply-red, and had a very pungent wine flavor. Something that I have really enjoyed here which seems a little counter intuitive is the Italian food. There are a lot of delicious Italian resturaunts. For example we tried Gnocchi for the first time the other night, and wow...

As of today I have thirteen more days left in Oaxaca which feels very bittersweet. I will definitely miss all of the new smells, sights and most of all tastes (as you can probably tell). By the way here are some pictures of school just because it's pretty..

Also a lizard I met on the street yesterday :)