Feliz Día del Padre

Days in México: 126

Monday was the last day of school for the seniors before they started exams. The rest of the school decided to surprise them towards the end of the day by hiding behind the balcony and then standing up and showering them with balloons. The balloons all had messages on them, wishing the graduates the best for the future. Then at recess break, the celebrations were joined with a band was playing Mariachi which is a typical type of Mexican folk music.

'Suerte' means luck in English

The seniors

Mariachi

For lunch that day, I ate cactus. Yes, you did read that correctly, cactus.
In Spanish it is called 'nopal' and I are it grilled to take out the crunch that raw cactus has. It didn't really have a taste like anything so I had it with lemon and a bit of salt to add flavour. Inside it had a sticky, saliva like solution mixed with a flesh like texture. I didn't mind it and would definitely eat it again.

Grilled cactus

At school, each group collectively earns 'minutos' for good behaviour. When each group has enough minutos, they can be exchanged for rewards. My group, 4B, exchanged our minutos for a day off school for last Friday. We also decided that on our day off we would all go out for breakfast. We went to La Parroquia, which was a restaurant I visited with my family a couple of weeks ago that serves traditional Veracruz food and we had a great time.

On Friday night the National Ballet of Russia was in Veracruz for one night only, so I went with one of my friends from school, Brenda. It was at the Teatro de la Reforma which is the main theatre in Veracruz. They performed Swan Lake, which is one of my favourite ballets. Lots of the dance companies from around the world don't visit Australia on tour because it is so far away so I'm glad I had the opportunity to go. It was a really great show but lots of the dancers were sunburnt because the sun in Mexico is a lot stronger then what they are use to in Russia.

Teatro de la Reforma

Brenda and I

The World Cup started last Thursday and the whole city has gone full out to support their teams. There are lots of Mexico shirts but I have also seen people supporting Spain, Brazil and Italy. Mexico's first game was on Friday (Mexico time) against Cameroon which they won 1-0. Australia's first game was on the same day against Chile, but they lost 3-1. I wasn't able to watch the game because I was at the ballet but I had a friend sending me regular updates.

On Saturday, we went out for seafood for lunch. I'm not a big seafood fan but I gave everything a go. My favourite was probably the tuna tacos which were made with blue tortillas. Blue tortillas don't have any food colouring in but they are blue because they are made from blue corn. I tried octopus for the first time on octopus tostadas, which unexpectedly had quite a lot of chili in! I still managed to eat it all and then drank a whole bottle of water straight after.

Tuna tacos with blue tortillas

Octopus tostadas 

Today (Sunday the 15th of June), is the Día del Padre (Fathers' Day.) For breakfast, we went to Xalapa (pronounced 'Halapa') which is the capital city of Veracruz. It's about an hour and a half away by car. Afterward breakfast we went to the plaza which was bigger than the plazas in Boca del Rio but smaller than the plaza in Mexico City. In the plaza there was an eating area which was set out as an old-fashioned outdoor square. The shops and restaurants were all two story buildings that each had a different design. The roof was painted to look like a sky with clouds in it. I really loved the layout because it was relaxing.