Denily
and I met for our third time this semester over the most delicious Mexican food
ever. Hence it was appropriate to talk a lot about food, which is great! I
picked up two chicken burritos from Tacos Ernesto ahead of time (look it up;
this place is delicious) and brought them back to campus.
Like
I said last time, Venezuelan food lacks almost all spiciness, so I was hoping
the slight spiciness would not ruin the food for her. Fortunately, she enjoyed
it, although I am not sure how much so. We continued to talk about food. Denily
says that food in Venezuela revolves around beef, or at least beef is the most
important meat. While the hamburger and ground beef are probably the most
common examples of beef in America, Venezuela has a different way to serve it.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name or how exactly it is prepared.
Denily
and I also talked a little bit more about our hometowns. Denily is from the
capital of Venezuela, Caracas. While Denily loves her city, she thinks it is
unsafe for foreigners due to crime rates. She said that if you walk around
looking like a tourist, people are bound to take advantage of you. If you go
everywhere with a local or appear to know the city though, you would probably
be safe. However, the way she describes her city makes it sound awesome.
Temperatures around the year are between 60° and 80° despite the fact that it
is only about 10 degrees north of the equator. The beach is only about 5 miles
north of the city, but in between is part of a mountain range with peaks in the
2500-meter range. She mentioned that there are even some hotels in the
mountains from which you can see both the ocean and the city. It sounds like a
perfect vacation setting. I told her some about Chattanooga as well (and this
is for you readers to hear as well!). Chattanooga is basically the best city
ever. It is large enough to have life, but small enough that traffic isn’t
obnoxious. It is the home of many historical events, including battles from the
Civil War. It is full of southern hospitality. And one of my favorite things
about Chattanooga: the outdoors. Chattanooga is a huge outdoors city, with a
river running right through downtown, mountains all around, and trees
everywhere. You can go behind my house and just walk deep into the woods (to a
point, before it slopes off into a 200 foot drop). Anyway, advertisement for
Chattanooga is done (for now).
Denily
also mentioned the upcoming election….but not our election, the election in
Venezuela. Hugo Chavez has been the president of Venezuela since 1999. After
being the president for only a few years, he made huge changes to the legislature,
including an increase in term length of the president from 5 to 6 years, as
well as a limit on only 2 terms per president. Of course, Chavez, being the
nice guy that he is, decided later in 2009 that the idea of 2 terms per
president didn’t make sense, so he changed it back so any president could have
an unlimited number of terms. So after already completing 2 terms, he ran for a
third. Denily and most of her friends were hoping this election would end
differently. But it didn’t. He won again. This post would have been more
exciting if I had posted it before the election, but I am so slow that I am
posting it after the fact...sorry!
So
that was our third meeting. It was interesting hearing about another country’s
politics and culture again. I’ll talk to y’all later!
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