Walkin' in Oaxaca

We just finished La Comida, our lunchtime meal and the biggest meal of the day. Today, we had vegetable soup, bread, spaghetti with tomato cream sauce, turkey breast, and salad. Yesterday, we had potato egg soup, bread, rice, fish with a sweet cream sauce that also had chili in it, salad, and these really dense little cakes with sugar sprinkles.

Later yesterday evening, Jasmine and I met up with a bunch of other people for more wanderings. We made our way to the Zócalo and proceeded to search for a pastry shop one student had read about in his guide book. We eventually found it; the pastries were tan deliciosos, and if I go back I will take some pictures.

This adventure was followed more wandering that eventually led to dinner at El Importador off the Zócalo. I had a tamale oaxaqueño, a square tamale filled with chicken and mole:

The Zócalo is beautiful right now; tomorrow is the real Christmas day here, el día de los reyes magos (Day of the Three Kings), and consequently all of the Christmas decorations are still up:

Many of the parks and large squares are adorned with really tal christmas trees fashioned out of large cloth drapes in red, green, or white, with lights hanging down the sides:

After dinner, we wandered around trying to find a bar that wasn't ridiculously crowded and eventually stopped in a tapas bar. The place had an open courtyard indoors, and we sat on the second floor on a patio. Speaking of which, we also ate dinner outside and it was FREEZING. We finished eating around 9:45pm and my hands were like ice. It's difficult to know what to wear because it's really hot in the sun but very cool in the shade; I will probably wear my coat out tonight when I head out around 6:30. Oh, and the sun sets around 6pm, which is wonderful.

This afternoon I went out with Jasmine to help her buy a phone and also to make copies of some important documents. We strolled through el Parque Juárez, which is also Parque Lllano, because everything here has TWO NAMES, for some reason. Like, the streets, and the parks. It can make it difficult to navigate. But, I feel pretty comfortable already in the area having only been around it a couple times. Anyway, on our way home we ran into our host mom's cousin?aunt? at a little snack shop called Popeyes (yes, it's the same Popeye), and she bought us pineapple paletas...paletas are kind of like popsicles, or ice cream bars on a stick (depending on whether you get a milk one or water one). We also passed several tasty looking taco shops...I can;t wait to try some of them (especially one place that advertises "Autenticos Tacos Arabes y Orientales"). Tonight, we might go to a restaurant that has live salsa music every night and apparently excellent pizza.

Oh, and these guys are everywhere: