Last night was christmas eve!! Because most people in Montenegro are Orthodox (don't ask, I don't know details), they celebrate Christmas on January 7th. At first I thought would be awesome because I have a biological christmas and an adopted one, but au contraire my friends. It really just means that my real Christmas, that I have known and loved for 22 years of my life is just another normal day in Bar. Businesses are open, people are busy, there are volleyball tournaments, and other things that would never happen on a REAL christmas!
Luckily, two of the volunteers Laura and Renata were in town (one is from France, and the later from Poland) so they were here to celebrate with me. They also had a friend from Kosovo staying with them for a few nights so we decided we were going to throw a Christmas celebration. Unfortunately I had practice until about 10:30 so I hurried and got there as soon as possible. They had all already eaten because the tradition is to eat when the first star appears in the sky. When I got there I was greeted with many foreign foods that are customary for Christmas.
First, I had some foie gras. This alone was an experience I wasn't expecting. For any of you who don't know what it is (I thought no one knew, but apparently I'm in the idiotic minority) it is fattened duck liver. Apparently it's all the rage in France and other parts of the world. It comes in all forms like a meat, a mousse, and a patee. YUMMMM, right?! I had recently heard how this little concoction was made and let me tell you it was NOT enticing. But, in the spirit of adventure I took a huge first bite!
 |
| yummmmm foie gras (said like fwah graw) |
Do I look excited?! (I was trying really hard to put on a great face). I knew it was a very expensive delicacy so I ate it and loved every bite...but never again will that body part of ANY animal enter my mouth. The other thing on the plate is some tuna with pavlaka and vegetables maybe? Not sure...just tasted like tuna.
After this I had some Polish soup that Renata made. It was made from plums soaked in hot water, cold water, etc. Definitely hard work! It was good and kinda tasted like warm applesauce...the color at first creeped me out (and it didn't help that I was still thinking about the fact I had just ingested foie gras). Here it is:
After this, we had dessert that Laura made. I was a little skeptical, but it looked really good! It was her first christmas cake to make on her own and she wasn't very enthused with how it turned out (which is why she is holding the knife...she wanted to stab it), but I was very proud of her! It was like an ice cream cake with chocolate frosting and something called Scottish cake on the bottom. It was delicious!!
Next we played a game. It was a lot of fun...it was played in partners and consisted of three rounds. We all wrote 10 items and put them in a hat. The first round was like catchphrase where you talk someone through it. The next round you can only say ONE word for the person to guess, and the third round is like charades. All of these rounds are with the same words so by the end you are very good at guessing because if you have any sort of memory you can figure it out. Laura was my partner and lets just say things got a little out of hand.
sidenote: everyone knows how competitive I am, and in volleyball this is a great thing. In a fun Christmas game with non-atheletes from much more modest countries this is probably NOT the best attribute to have
Laura and I ended up winning in the last round!! Needless to say I was super excited because of how much I hate losing. We then played one more game and I said I needed to get home because Santa was coming!!
No comments:
Post a Comment