Alright, so the lights were already shining on the Trinity trees on Thursday November 29. The following day was the ISO Christmas party. A year ago, the International Programs Office started requesting international students to arrive earlier than the American students to have three days if orientation. This is International Student Orientation (ISO). So Inessa, the International Student Advisor, requests the help of several students and offers an internship. I actually didn't enroll in the internship, but I was part of ISO as a volunteer. Well, in any case, interns and volunteers from the last ISO got together at Inessa's house for an early Christmas party. We were "encouraged" to bring a traditional dish from our countries in order to keep the spirit of internationality. I wanted to cook arroz con leche or buñuelos, which are traditional Colombian Christmas goodies, but I didn't plan on advance and ended up buying a cake at HEB. Yes, lame, but trying to figure out how to get all the ingredients and cook something when you don't have a car or cooking utensils in your dorm for a party that will start 3 hours later isn't exactly ideal. Anyway... at Inessa's we had some Cuban sandwiches, Russian potato salad, and llapingachos, which is an Ecuadorean dish.

Llapingachos ready to be fried... Ecuadorean goodness that fits in one hand.

Needless to say, by the end of the night my stomach was stuffed so much deliciousness. After eating, we played the white elephant game. I had never heard of that game before, but the basic rules are:
1. Everyone brings an unmarked gift and puts it in a table.
2. A drawing order is determined randomly.
3. Whoever goes first, can pick any of the gifts at the table and opens it.
4. The next player picks another gift and opens it, and can choose to either keep the gift he/she just opened or swap it for any of the gifts already opened.

The catch is...the people who have played this before buy ridiculous gifts. For example watch this:

While we bought DVDs, gift cards, and other "nice stuff", the older players brought a giant ugly doll and a very naughty dog doll. It was hilarious to see people fight over who would keep a fondue pot and who would end up with the giant baby doll.

Gifts switched hands like the Mississippi Miracle play. In the end, we had a great laughs watching people's reactions and frustration when they had to give their gift to someone else who wanted it too.

Christmas party was a great time. We all ended up with a gift and learned about how food in other countries was like.