This past Saturday was World's Fair at AUP, aka another AUP offering that enables kids to blow off all the steam that we're supposed to be suppressing due to all of our "stress" from our classes. Heh.
But aside from that, it was also another way for AUP to take advantage of the cultural hub that is their little community and expand the cultural horizons of its students. While I must admit that AUP students already have the advantage over NU and probably most American campuses with regards to their vast knowledge/acceptance/general interest in other cultures, I still find it amazing that AUP takes their cultural promotions so seriously. It's definitely something that not many American universities can successfully pull off, and I'm really happy that I have the opportunity to experience, albeit for a short time.
Back to World's Fair. For those of you who don't know what World's Fair: AUP style is, it's an afternoon in which any or all of the countries from which AUP students hail (some 100 different countries in all)can have a table where they can present their country through food, drink, photos, and the like. Most tables tapped into the AUP norm and elected to present whichever alcohol and mixed drinks are most common to their country while others also went the extra mile and prepared several dishes for us to munch on as well.
Something that I found particularly interesting what the number of regional stereotypes that were apparent as I moved from table to table. For example, the Balkan countries decided to team up to create a former-soviet-block super nation. What did they present? Loooooots of grain alcohol, most of which they made themselves. The English table? Beer and cadbury chocolates, further proving that the Brits don't have any decent cuisine. The Colombians, Peruvian, Chileans, and Argentinians all showed up at the Fair at noon already hammered, and by about 1pm, were all chanting their respective countries' futbol anthems. Same went for the Spaniards. Oh, and the American table? Sloppy joes, and a beer bong. Yep, that's America, folks. Even from the American perspective.
All-in-all, World's Fair is probably the greatest thing ever invented. For someone like me, who enjoys learning about new cultures through food and drink most of all, I was certainly in heaven.
I wish I had pictures to share, but once again I got caught up in the doing and forgot to pictorially document for prosperity. I'll be kicking myself in the future, for sure, for not taking any pictures of the Fair itself (I'm not counting the photos I took of the after-party/general shenanigans at the Champs de Mars because I don't think anyone should see the craziness that occurred there, haha), but I guess that's how things go sometimes, right?
