Classes were canceled yesterday because November 20 is el Día de la Revolución, so Rob, Norma, Amy, Jared and I went up to Volcancillo, an extinct volcano half an hour or so outside of Xalapa. Boy was that an awesome trip... we hiked up to the rim of the volcanic crater, which is basically like being on the edge of a cliff except the cliff encircles a huge crater. Then we crawled into a tiny lava tube and followed it down the hill a ways, at times having to lie on our backs and scoot ourselves along with the cave ceiling just inches from our noses. Claustrophobia, anyone? After that we went to a much bigger but far more out-of-the-way cave, where we had slow going because it wasn't exactly fixed up for tourists. Our only sources of light were four (and at times just two) candles, which we trusted to show us the difference between a rock we could step on and "the abyss" (in reality, usually just a gap where you could fall two or three feet, but still quite dangerous in our situation). We finished off the day by eating at a nearby restaurant, where I had rabbit. It doesn't taste bad, but I wouldn't recommend it - you're paying a lot for a rather pathetic quantity of meat.
Today turned out to be the worst day ever to take public transportation because, as you may have noticed, yesterday was just the 19th of November. Today was the real holiday, so the streets were jammed with parades and people standing around not doing anything. I understand the extended weekend mentality, but I really think they could have canceled classes today. I hopped into a yellow line colectivo (a van) because I was too lazy to walk to school, which turned out to be a big mistake. I started to realize this when the driver kept following 20 de noviembre (that's the street name) when he should have gone onto Xalapeños Ilustres. When I questioned him about this, he said not to worry. Apparently "don't worry" means "I'm taking you to the middle of fucking nowhere," because when I finally gave up and got out of the van I had absolutely no idea where I was. Trusting my innate ability to intuit the general direction of el centro, I wandered around for about an hour before finally finding familiar territory, forcing my way through crowds of people and arriving at the school, forty minutes late for class.
Thursday will be some sort of presentation at my school about various ethnic foods, an event in which students are encouraged to take part, bringing traditional dishes from their home countries. This begs a question that has come up several times here: is there really any traditional American food? We have a HUGE variety of food, and while you might attribute burgers and fries to a normal American diet, they're hardly traditional, nor are they unique to our fine country. I will venture so far as to claim that we do not, in fact, truly have traditional food, and I'll also speculate as to the reason: we're a nation of immigrants. Other western hemispheric nations, like Mexico, have notable indigenous populations with their own traditional dishes, as well as foods from the conquering lands (i.e. Spain). We, however, have virtually no remaining indigenous population (not to marginalize what American Indians are left), and our heritage is so diverse we don't have one or two countries providing native dishes. Our diet includes elements from Italy, France, England and Germany (and now even Mexico, another relatively new country). And while we can find a few stereotypical items like meatloaf and mashed potato items (or more accurately, corn and turkey), we really don't have much in the way of our own line of actual traditional dishes.
But then, nothing's more American than Apple pie!
(We also invented the burrito).
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