McCarthy’s (and a Lennon) do BA

My family left exactly one week ago today :-( 

My mom, dad, sister, brother and aunt Kathy all made the looong flight down here to Argentina to visit me!  We had a wonderful time- I loved showing them my city!  Plus, it was so nice to be with them again; sometimes I feel like my personality is muted here because of the language barrier.  I can speak and understand Spanish proficiently and have improved a lot, but when you live in a place with a different language you come to understand that language is much more then words and pronunciation.  For instance, when someone tells a joke, there’s often a cultural reference that I don’t understand, or they say it too fast and under their breath so I have to ask for it to be repeated, and we all know that humor is 50% timing, so the joke is automatically loses 1/2 it’s funniness when it has to be repeated or explained.  In the same way, if you’ve ever tried to make a quick sarcastic comment in Spanish, you’ll agree with me in that it simply doesn’t translate well.  We come from different humor systems. 

So, I was naturally THRILLED to have my family here for a week of joking and full force personalities! 

(No, that’s not BA, it’s a sweaty pic of Iguazu, which I will talk about soon!)

After they settled into their rented apt, I brought them to one of my favorite sights in Buenos Aires, the Recoleta Cemetery.  As I said before, it’s like a little town of tombs, both quaint and creepy because sometimes you can actually see the coffins inside the tombs. 

After some poking around their neighborhood and rest, I took them to a parrilla, or traditional Argentine steak house, for some good ole’ Argentine bife.  We went the traditional route and ordered many cuts of meat for the table to share, along with papas fritas, a salad, never-ending bread basket, and VINO up the wazoo :-)  I particularly liked this parrilla because I never before got to try different cuts of meat side by side (at Argentine asados, which is sort of a bbq, they serve the meats in various courses, one after another).  I wish I had some pics, but I forgot my camera! 

Other things we did in BA included:

1) Walking around the center of the city and seeing the United Buddy Bears (Each country that is in the UN had a bear in the plaza)   USA, and me cheating on him with Argentina!

We had fun posing with the different ones before they were all packed away (we got there right as they were deconstructing the exhibit!)

 

2) Saw some of the most important parts of the city including Casa Rosada (the “white house” of Argentina), Teatro Colon, La Puente de la Mujer, and La Boca

And, best of all, I found a statue of Mary that looks uncannily like my sister!  Who is who?

3) And of course we ate! 

  Every last bite…

At many of my favorite restaurants in BA!

 

We ended their visit with some empanadas made by my host mother, Monica,

  a fabulous tango show

 

 

 

And look who decided to learn Tango as well!!

Whoa, another monster of a post!  And that’s not even all we did!  I will soon post our side trips to Iguazu and Colonia, Uruguay, but that is all I have in me for now.  I was so happy to have the fam here, and even though I think some things about the culture here really surprised them (like how “table service” and “quick” are complete opposites), I hope they enjoyed the trip as much as I did!  I miss you all still!