I was having a yummy hot chocolate in a Viennese cafe with some other language assistants when my friend and I got a tip. We were told it was lucky we were in town because there was a special event going on over at one of the United Nations buildings. Apparently once a year the Women's Guild of the UN hosts a big fundraiser in Vienna to raise money for the work they do for suffering children around the globe. The fundraiser was in the form of an International Bazaar.
The second I heard about this, I knew it was something I would want to check out. This is the sort of thing that makes me love travel. You never know what you'll come across. And this experience has a special place in my heart.
Now we heard the dealio with this whole bazaar thing is that most of the member nations have a booth where you can try foods from their country at pretty cheap prices.
Sold! Many of you know how much I love food. All of you should know how much I like trying new things, especially when it comes to other cultures.
So we made our way over to the correct building which was a challenge in itself.
Once we arrived we headed straight in and (sadly) didn't even take a moment to figure out how it all worked. Seeing a big room with lots of booths to our left, we started exploring in that direction. We saw booth after booth of really cool wares from countries like Australia, Kazakhstan, Zambia, and Colombia---just to name a few. I even geeked out over the Mexico table because I could actually buy REAL salsa...not that crap they try to pass as salsa in this country. However, we noticed that maybe the event was a little mis-advertised by our new friends. We didn't really see any food to be had like was described. Bummer. We galavanted around looking at all the handmade authentic goods for a while before deciding to leave due to our hunger level and the apparent lack of real sustenance at the bazaar. Plus, we needed to pick up our friend Amanda at the train station relatively soon.
The country...not my homeland.
That's when my friend Paul and I realized that there was an ENTIRE downstairs section we didn't notice upon arrival. If the upstairs section was about the size of my middle school's double gym, the downstairs section was the size of a(n American) football field semi-seperated into two areas. I was pumped. I ran off and got some delicious Korean food first while Paul waited in line for food from Eritrea. Now remember, we needed to pick up our friend. I was so concerned that she would either not want to come back here in such a rush or that it would be closed by the time we returned, that it made it a little tough to leave.
Thankfully, Amanda being the rockstar she is was totally on board. We hauled it back over there after a quick stop to drop off Amanda's bags and made it in time.
I then proceeded to enjoy cuisine from the following countries:
Top three (tough decision):
3. Pot sticker type things from Korea
2. Cous-cous concoction from Armenia
and the winner
1. Yummy Indonesian chicken satay and rice...my whole mouth just filled with saliva just thinking about it. Mmmmmm!
(Food from Indonesia beer from Holland)
We ended up back upstairs after the people downstairs ran out of food (we were there till the bitter end) to take pictures with people in their countries traditional costumes.
Zambia
Kazakhstan...Best traditional clothing in my opinion.
Ukraine
The Netherlands
The best thing about this was that those little kids would get so silly/scared whenever the people on stilts walked toward them. It became a game. Adorable!
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