Christmas Eve

Once again, away from home for another major holiday. However, a couple from the show invited us over to their family´s home for Christmas Eve dinner. Hans and Kia. They do a unique rope/trapeze act. Hans speaks English pretty well and has helped us so much with anything that we need during our time here. It was really nice of them to invite us to the meal. They had been talking about the tradition and the foods they eat for weeks before and insisted that we join them. They would not take no for an answer, so there we were...

The Menu consists of Bacalhua (fish, and I promise some of them were still breathing), cooked cabbage (ask my family about that experience), potatoes, rolls and tea. The smell of the fish was almost too much, but I took it like a true champ. They divide the Bacalhua into two sections. One is the body of the fish. Still has it´s skin, still has it´s little fins. The second section is consider a delicacy. It consists of the heads and guts all mixed together. So, I took them up on the first section. It wasn´t too bad, just tasted like fish. The hardest part was probably getting the bones out of every bite before I ate it. And trying to look civilized while I was picking at every bite. I didn´t have any cabbage, but the potatoes were wonderful.

After dinner, we all sat and talked for a while. Then came dessert...

They brought out these little elephant ear looking things. And they tasted like elephants ears too. So, one for one. But then, the desserts started pouring out of the kitchen like the Peru flood of 1913. Look it up, it happened. They brought out a marshmallow cake, a cookie cake, two fruit cakes, little dough balls stuffed with apples, little dough balls stuffed with pumpkin, pineapples, and oranges. It was wonderful. Although I was full after my piece of cookie cake, I didn´t want to seem rude, so I just kept eating my share of the desserts. If only they could have brought out the desserts first, maybe I would have been too full to eat my Bacalhua.

It was a great experience to see how another culture celebrates the holidays. Like I said, Hans had been talking for weeks of how great the Bacalhua was, so it was pretty cool that we got to experience it first hand. It was really nice of them to let us be a part of their celebrations.

After we got back to the circus lot, the Pages and I opened our secret santa gifts. Then, I surprised them by playing Jingle Bells on my harmonica that I was secretly learning how to play down by the ocean everyday. They were quite impressed! Haha. And then...we had three shows on Christmas Day. EEEK...Merry Christmas!!