El color de Mexico

Nombre del crìtico: Laurencia Boulanger
Pais: Canada
Critica escrita el 19 de Mayo de 2010
Nombre del restaurante: Los Cuates
Tipo de restaurante: mexicano
Calificacion de la comida: 8/10
Servicio: 9/10
Precio: Entre 8 y 20 $US
Ambiente: Familial, ìntimo y dinàmico.




Durante mi viaje a Washington, tuve la oportunidad de ir a comer en un restraurance mexicano con un grupo de amigos, una experiencia que me encantò totalmente, porque me recordò de mi intercambio a Mexico. Me gusto inmediatamente la decoratiòn colorada y el ambiente festivo y acogedoro de Los Cuates. Los camareros me parecieron muy simpàticos y contentos de servir estudiantes que hablaban español y que querìan aprender. Entonces, fue un real plazer para mi de compartir con ellos y de practicar un poquito esta lengua que me gusta tanto hablar.





Como entrada, sirvieron una deliciosa salsa piquante con nachos. Pràcticamente todos tomaron la limonada tìpica para beber. Sin embargo, la bebida era extraña y me decepcionò: no encontré el mismo sabroso sabor de los limones frescos. Los platillos principales vinieron rapidamente con un torbellino de olores exòticas. Sus presentaciones eran variadas y artìsticas, todas con muchos colores y un estilo ùnico. Habìa pedido algo que se llamaba Camarones al Mezcal (comì los mejores camarones de mi vida en Mexico), con muchas verduras y frijoles. Frijoles! Qué feas! Y qué sabrosas! Evidentemente, mis compañeros no quisieron probarlas, entonces Rosie, Brenda y yo las comimos todas y fue una delicia.



En pocas palabras, el Restaurante Los Cuates fue definitivamente un éxito. Lo aconsejo a todos que buscan para una experiencia cultural alegre y colorada. Solamente evitan las limonadas y no estaràn decepcionados!

A Descent into Hell Worth Taking

May 8th, 10h00 AM,
# 100, Raoul Wallenberg Place,
Southwest Washington DC,
The Holocaust Museum.

A strong and warm wind blows wildly into my hair while I face the typical squared, white and elegant building, wondering which secrets and horrors are hidden inside. Very Washington-boring-type, for an edifice. Very enigmatic as well. I feel kind of strange, not knowing exactly what to expect, not knowing how I really feel anyway nor how should I. I’d rather try to concentrate a little bit, then. Why not starting with what I already know, some concrete, solid information?

The museum’s history
On November 1st, 1978, the President Jimmy Carter established the first commission on the Holocaust. His mandate was to commemorate the innumerable victims of the Jewish genocide during the Second World War. One year later, Carter’s commission made a report that determined three main components that the commemoration project should include: an educational foundation, a comity on conscience and a national memorial and/or museum. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened its doors 14 years later, on April 26th, 1993.


The Holocaust’s history
I’ll try to briefly summarize by seven points the causes, the circumstances and the consequences of what happened in Germany- not to say in Europe- between 1939 and 1945.

So mainly, the Holocaust is…
· The extermination of five to six million Jewishes by the Nazis, ruled by Adolf Hitler during World War II.
· Also called Soah, in Hebrew.
· Born with the paroxysm anti-Semitic present in the European population for many decades.
· The systematic elimination on men adults, but also of women and children.
· The murder of 1 500 000 children.
· Unique in the history of humanity because of its rigorous and well-prepared organization and its industrial and administrative characteristics.
· The disappearance of a huge part of the cultural and religious Jewish heritage.

My experience
I learned incredibly during my visit into the Holocaust museum. Besides, the exposition’s mission is very well accomplished: it informs, it honours and makes sure that nothing about it will be forgotten, so that the mistakes that were committed in the past won’t be repeated ever again. In addition, the texts, the movies, the graphics, the pictures and the objects presented described those terrible events in an extremely precise and significant way. Overall, I found my experience one of the most interesting and I was very pleased to be able to satisfy the obvious lack of knowledge I soon realized I had.
Nevertheless, I must admit that it’s been hard and painful for me – and for most of those who lived it, I believe- to go through those walls, painted with inhuman cruelty and violence. Some images still stick to my mind and my heart, blackening them with uncertainties, hate, misunderstanding and so many questions unanswered. When I made my way out, I felt empty and so dull, kind of colorless, without emotions. I was disgusted by men, which was very depressing and disconcerting, because I’m actually myself a human.

Even so, I think it must be everyone’s duty to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum if once they step by Washington DC, just in order to realize how lucky we are to live free and safe and to give those who did not have that chance consideration and remembrance.

**In closing, you might be interested in some short videos Véronique and I took in front of the museum. Unfortunately, it was strictly forbidden to take pictures inside, but here are some good ones we used for our presentation. You’ll also find at the bottom the poem we wrote and read together in front of the class.


General Dwight's speech

State of Deception: The exposition

«Think about what you saw»

«Hear their plea»

It often starts with one guy
He got an evil eye
Who sees the world
Permanently destroyed and hurled

It continues with ignorance
Even though, « Humanity has a moral sense! »
Still, it grows like a sunk fence
That divides our sanity, our country, our family
And break through our hasty defense

It rises with fear,
The fear and the weakness of people against deadly power and hate
Mouths shut, eyes closed
Backs turned to the horror and to the injustice
Like freaking flesh robots
Hearts blackened by murders and betrayal

And it ends with destruction
Of our sanity, of our country, of our families
And of hope, above everything
The death in the eyes of children
Surrounded by blood, ashes and tears
5 million souls murdered
In the name of a man’s ambition

So that you’re not ignorant
Hear their plea
That you can’t repeat old humanity mistakes
Hear their plea
And so that you remember, honor and love them forever
For what we did to them
Hear their plea

«We played, we laughed,
We were loved.We were ripped from the arms of our parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.We had a future.
We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers.
We had dreams, then we had no hope.

We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars,
no air to breathe, smothering, crying, starving, dying.

Separated from the world to be no more.
From the ashes, hear our plea.
This atrocity to mankind can not happen again.

Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.»