Christmas nails

Before they got chipped and nasty. Courtesy of Gina Maliekal (aka Short Stack).

Finals Week is finally over

Only one more finals week left in my college career. Merry Christmas.

Plano is the new Smallville

Plano, Illinois, not 20 minutes away from my house, is where the new Superman movie is currently being filmed! I can't imagine a better place for Smallville, the quintessential midwestern corn town. No offense to any of my friends who live in Plano (*cough*Chantel*cough*Mary*cough*), but there's pretty much nothing there... perfect for Smallville!

I'm tempted to go down there and see what's up (like I did when Transformers 3 was being shot in Chicago...), but... it's Plano! Can't wait to see the new movie though, it'll be even more exciting and close to home than seeing Transformers 3 or the Dark Knight. (Maybe not closer to home than Public Enemies though, where some scenes were shot at the Paramount Theater in Aurora.)

Ik Junoon

So here's a new favorite song of the week, from the new movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. It's called Paint it Red/Ik Junoon.  I have no idea what the movie is about, but I'm assuming the fact that this song is set during the tomatina festival in Spain is somehow explained... regardless, Hrithik Roshan is in it. And is covered in tomato guts.



On a side note, the tomatina festival is coming up a week from Wednesday!

Multiculturalism at its finest?

Guido Italians... Mexican burritos... Indian man... Ocean City, Maryland is the face of multiculturalism!

N.B. I did indeed just look up "Guido" on wikipedia, and it is an Italian name but can be a Spanish name as well. Not as funny this way, but still. Just wanted to put it out there.

An exhausting but awesome day in DC

There are so many awesome (and free) things to do in DC, I can't get enough!

The Dalai Lama speaks in DC!
On the morning of Saturday July 9, I went with two of my friends/fellow interns at the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy to see the Dalai Lama give a talk about world peace outside the Capitol. We got there at 8am for a 10am talk and it was already packed! Before the Dalai Lama took the stage, Whoopi Goldberg emerged as the MC and a Tibetan folk dance troupe performed a short piece. Unexpected, but cool.

The Dalai Lama was pretty much just as I expected: the cutest old Asian man I've ever seen. Sorry if that's naive. I understand he is one of the greatest religious leaders in the world. But he is also extremely personable and friendly. Even though the Capitol lawn was packed (we were pretty close, regardless), I felt like he could have been talking to a small group of friends. He talked a lot about how inner peace leads to outer peace and then to world peace. Lots of stories. My favorite had to be his instructions to us all to smile and wave.

"Just smile at everyone, every day, and I guarantee they will smile back. Except some people won't smile back, because they don't like to see other people happy. So smile twice at them just to annoy them!"

Oh, Dalai Lama, you crack me up. He also told another story about how he went to his friend's house once for a visit and noticed that his friend's wife had "not so much outer beauty." And the Dalai Lama pointed this out to his friend. To which his friend replied that he knew his wife had little outer beauty, but was incredibly beautiful on the inside, and that is why they had enjoyed such a long, happy marriage. Interesting stuff! 

I still stand by my statement that he is the sweetest old man I've ever seen. Oh, and there were many Tibetans there (obv), and it was really cool to see them dressed in the traditional Tibetan style. I really like their style of dresses.

Smithsonian Folklife Festival

After seeing the Dalai Lama, I spent the afternoon wandering the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall (after stopping to see the US Botanical Gardens). There was so much to see there, I could not possibly see it all in one day! What I did do/see though:

Ate West African Food. According to the sign, this is called "Thiebou Dieun" and is "fish, carrots, yuca, and cabbage served with djolof rice, which is cooked in a rich tomato sauce." It looked like something that I had the least experience, so I got that! And I got bissap juice, which is hibiscus flower tea. Mmm.

Saw San (Bushmen) dancers from Botswana perform traditional song, dance, and storytelling. One woman told the story of fire in their language, which Americans usually call "click languages." (It was translated, obviously.) Loved hearing a native speaker! I've studied clicks in linguistics classes and seen the Gods Must Be Crazy, but seeing her right there was awesome.

Learned how to make a traditional Tongan dish at a "Homecooking" cooking class in the Peace Corps section of the festival... that's right, Tonga. It's somewhere out in the Pacific, near Fiji and American Samoa. Don't know where those are either? Me either. I copied down the recipe but it'll take a while to go through my scribbles. I'll post the recipe on here when I get the chance.

Browsed the festival's booths and marketplace. So many booths on culture - from the handicrafts of the world section on the Peace Corps side to the many booths on all aspects of Colombian culture on the Colombia side - it was a bit of an overload of information.  I really enjoyed it though. My favorite was the folk music of Colombia, they had a small band and people were dancing. I love seeing joy being expressed in so many different ways through culture!

That is an extremely sparse description of the festival... so much to do and see!

Freer Gallery

During the hottest part of the day, I escaped for a couple hours into the Freer Gallery, aka the Smithsonian Museum of Eastern Art. Yet again, so interesting and cool. I feel like a broken record here. Art from China, Japan, South Asia, and the Middle East. Just my cup of tea. 

On to more, more, more cultural adventures!

The Cynical Dairy Farmer's Guide to the New Middle East

Here's a great article that I found through friends from study abroad!

Click the cow

Walk like an Egyptian... or a Jordanian... in DC

There have been a few Arab cultural holdovers for me since getting back to the States (including calling the US "the States"). I tend to shut off the water immediately after using it (thank you, Jordan, and your lack of water), put lots of sugar in my tea, and if I'm feeling particularly Arab, sometimes I'll have to remind myself not to throw toilet paper in the trash. (Septic systems in the Middle East are not the sturdiest.)

While this is all well and good, since I am the only one who has to deal with these slight cultural anachronisms (of a sort), there is one habit I haven't yet broken that affects others more than myself: the way I cross streets.

While I was in Cairo, I wrote a post about several cultural differences between Egypt and the US including road crossings. Traffic fatalities are 44% higher in Egypt than the US. There really is no way to describe it, but this youtube video should give you some idea of how ridiculous it is.

**Please note that one of the scariest moments of my life was crossing Tahrir Street on my way back from class... I was sandwiched between two trucks in the middle of the road. Terrifying!

Just when I was starting to get the hang of it, aka, crossing streets by myself, we were evacuated to Jordan. In Jordan, the same rules applied. Meaning, there were no rules. However, less people in Amman means less traffic, which means cars went faster. Much faster. Within the first two days in Jordan, I saw three accidents, whereas I saw none in Cairo. Yikes!

Despite the faster moving cars, I eventually got used to crossing streets in Amman as well. You just kind of had to assume they would stop for you, which they did, at the last minute.

Now that I'm in DC, I do the same thing walking streets here... why should I wait for a cross signal if there's no cars? Or if they're far away or moving slowly? I don't know how many cars I've freaked out since living here! Sorry, DC drivers. I am that terrible pedestrian now.

And just for funsies:

Kabobs in DC

After being in the same city for the past two weeks, my friend from Jordan, Justin, and I finally got together to catch up post-study abroad. We wandered Dupont a little bit before winding up at Moby Dick's House of Kabob, a local Persian chain, on Connecticut Ave.

They had REALLY GOOD falafel. I hesitate to say the best because this is only my second falafel in DC post-Jordan, but it really hit the spot. 

Weird bread? Other than leaking the yogurt sauce, it was new and yum!

And even though it wasn't the Arab-type falafel and food I was used to, it was really cool to see Persian food and kabob, because to my untrained eyes it seems like a mix of Middle Eastern and South Asian food.  For dessert I got zoolbia and bamiyeh, which looks an awful lot like (read: is) jalebi (a dessert that my Indian roommate, Gina, gets from her family and shares with us a lot), and awwamat (or honey balls, a popular Middle Eastern/Central Asian dessert I had a lot in Jordan/Egypt). 

Bamiyeh (honey balls) top, and Zoolbia (pretzel-looking thing) bottom

There were several other items on the menu I didn't get to try, so I'll have to come back here in the near future, one of which is doogh.  According to Wikipedia, doogh is some kind of Persian yogurt-based beverage.  Never heard of it before in my life, but I'm going to try it!

On a completely separate note, in my wanderings, I found another kabob place named "FRIENDS"...

That was reminiscent of a certain bar in Aqaba, Jordan...

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Goodbye Egypt, Hello Jordan

I wonder if they're related at all or if it's a total coincidence?

My Middle Eastern Night

A few weeks ago after getting home from Jordan, I hosted a "Middle Eastern Night" at our house so that some family and friends could come over, see my slideshow of pictures from my semester abroad, and eat some authentic Arab food.  It was great fun, I was so excited to see everyone again and tell my stories.

But let's be honest, it was really about the food.

In Jordan, a small group of us study abroad students went to Dr. Wafaa's apartment where she taught us how to make hummus, yogurt sauce, maklouba, shatta (hot sauce), and lemonade with mint.

So, using those recipes, I replicated that meal at home, to great success! The hummus was delicious (and a huge hit - the huge bowl of it was gone by noon the next day), the tzatziki-esque yogurt sauce was yum, and everyone liked the maklouba (which means "upside down" in Arabic because of how it's made), even if the rice was a bit mushy.  I didn't make the shatta, but I did make the 'aseer limon ma nana ("lemon juice with mint"), which exploded all over me because I apparently don't know how to use a blender. Oh well. Gina finished it when I went to try to get the sticky Sprite off my clothes.

Appetizers: pita bread, pita chips, hummus, tzatziki, and pistachios

Getting the ingredients itself was interesting. Most were available at regular grocery stores, but I couldn't find the short grain Egyptian rice anywhere. I didn't have time to search out a Middle-Eastern market in the area (there are several Indian groceries, but I don't know of many Arab ones), so I went to Montgomery Market instead, which usually has a good supply of ethnic foods. No Egyptian rice, but I used Valenciano Spanish paella rice instead. I also picked up some Zaatar and I think a couple other random Arab foods there. (They also had kunafa mix! I didn't buy it, but I might try it in the future.)

I got to be chef to mother's sous chef for once! She made the tzatziki according to my recipe and got all the mint that we needed from her herb garden. 

Here are the recipes (courtesy of my roommate from Jordan, Lauren), which we used more like guidelines: (what we actually did in parenthesis)

Hummus

Ingredients:

¼ kilo of raw chickpeas (3 cans of chickpeas, rinsed)

2-4 heaping spoonfuls of Tahina, sesame seed paste

½ of a lemon, juiced (3 lemons)

2-3 large spoonfuls of plain yogurt

Salt

1-2 cloves of fresh garlic

Olive Oil

(cumin and tumeric)

Preparation:

1. Overnight, soak chickpeas in lukewarm water. (Or not, if you're using cans)

2. Fill large pot with soaked chickpeas and water until ~1 inch above the level of chickpeas. Boil for an

hour, uncovered. (Again, unnecessary with cans)

3. Taste chickpeas to see if soft. Put in blender or food processor and add several spoonfuls of Tahina.

Blend until chickpeas are broken up.

4. Add lemon juice, garlic cloves, and salt (and cumin). Blend.

5. Add water and yogurt until it’s the consistency desired.

6. Serve in a bowl with olive oil drizzled on top. (And some stripes of cumin and tumeric, with some whole chickpeas in the middle.)

I can't eat store-bought hummus anymore!

Al-Khierib Leban (Yogurt with cucumber sauce)

Ingredients:

9 small cucumbers

1 kilo of plain yogurt

2-3 cloves of garlic

(1 lemon, juiced)

Salt to taste

Handful of fresh mint leaves

Preparation:

1. Cut the ends off of the cucumbers. With a cheese-grater, grate the cucumbers into a large bowl.

2. Peel the skin off the garlic, grate the cloves into the same bowl as the cucumbers.

3. Cut the mint leaves into very fine pieces. Set aside.

4. Mix the yogurt (and lemon juice) into the cucumbers and garlic in the large bowl. Salt to taste.

5. Sprinkle the mint leaves over top.

6. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Thanks to Mom for the pretty presentation

‘Asir limon m’a na’na – Lemon juice with mint

Ingredients:

- 3 lemons

- A handful of mint leaves

- 1 liter of 7up/Sprite

Preparation:

1. Juice the 3 lemons. Put into blender.

2. Put handful of mint leaves into blender.

3. Blend until mint leaves are fairly chopped.

4. Add the 7up into the blender gradually

5. Blend until half liter is used. Add the rest of the 7up at the end of blending.

6. Serve over crushed ice.

The maklouba was a bit harder to make since I wasn't sure if the recipe was for one pot or the four pots we made as a group in Jordan.... so that one I made up as I went along. I would have to make it again to see what I actually put in it in order to give any kind of accurate recipe. 

In short though, it is peppers, onions, fried eggplant, tomatoes, and marinated chicken, all mushed up together, covered with rice, and boiled in a pot. Once the rice is cooked, it's done! And you flip the pot over onto a serving tray and eat it. (Hence why it's called "upside-down.")

And that's it!

Our maklouba pots in Jordan

The finished product

Waacking!

After watching So You Think You Can Dance (dance, dance, dance...) last night with my mom (taped from Wednesday night), she has since become obsessed with waacking. I find this hilarious and really want her to try to do it. I've never heard of this style of dance before (but then again, I'm not terribly knowledgable about a lot of things hip hop), but it's awesome!