The Livingstons

To continue from my previous post...

I am sitting on the white couch in the living room of my new host family's house. I am kicking around a blue balloon that is lying on the floor, left-over from the 80th birthday party they had for a friend last night. There is an overload of left-over cake(Dulce de leche and two chocolate cakes) in the fridge and I keep going back for more. I am home alone at the moment, Leigh is running, my host brother- Leandro, from New Orleans is in Iguazu for the weekend. My host family has gone to their country home, Quinta, for the weekend and left Leigh and I all alone. Ah...finally time to myself!

Balloons



Let me start with a little background of who I am living with. The Livingston's consist of two parents- Roberto and Patricia and their four children; Roberto, Alejandro, Carolina, and Fernando. Roberto and Patricia met while they were living in New York 45ish years ago. Roberto was a surgeon and Patricia was working with the embassy of Spain. They met at a party, fell in love and had their four children.They raised their children in New York for the next 8 years, after this they moved to Ushuaia( The capital of the Tierra del Fuego province of Argentina). Some may know this as the southern most city in the world. There was more work for Roberto in Ushuaia than in New York, so they stayed here for the next ten years. Some of my facts may be incorrect because of my in-fluency of Spanish, but I'm doing the best I can. After raising their children, working non-stop for many years the Livingston's moved back to Buenos Aires, retired(5-6 years ago) decided to host students through IES(abroad program) and to build a hotel in Ushuaia, where their daughter, Carolina and her husband now work.

Dining room


Please check out their adorable hotel...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g312855-d631106-Hotel_Austral-Ushuaia_Province_of_Tierra_del_Fuego_Patagonia.html#22320910


The Livingston's have hosted 38 students in 5ish years, now run a hotel in Ushuaia, and have a country home an hour outside the city. Patricia paints beautiful pieces of art while Roberto maintains the hotel, apartment and country home. They are energetic people, endearing, full of knowledge and experience and are completely comfortable having people live in their home- take note this is Leigh's and my third day at their lovely home and they completely trust leaving us alone here.

Me and Leigh's room- I have top bunk!


Roberto is their eldest child(about 41). He is living in the same apartment with us because he got a divorce two months ago... he has the most precious daughter- Uma who comes over three times a week and is SUCH a joy to play with. Roberto is fluent in English, but only speaks to us in Spanish because he knows we need the practice.

Alejandro is the next child. I believe he is a doctor, lives about 15min away on the train is married with three boys. Then there is Carolina, she has two kids- girl and a boy and works at the Hotel in Ushuaia with her husband. Fernando is the youngest and is expecting a child in the net few months.

Living room


Living with this family has been a joy. Sure, I have only been here for two days, but these past few days I have truly observed a porteno family. It feels nice to be made a part of this family. I almost wish I had decided to live with a host family a while ago, but it's useless to think like that. I loved living in my apartment with my friends, Leigh and Ian. We had great parties, dinners, talks, drinking games, get togethers, etc...but after 3ish months, I started to get tired and began craving a family. I craved home cooked dinners(anything other than my daily veggie burgers would be sufficient)a mother figure, knowledgeable portenos, and a "HOME". Moving in here was purely luck. To make a long story short, my dear friend Emily Driscol's little sister lived here when she studied abroad in BA. Upon hearing that I may be homeless in BA for the second time in 5 months, she told me to call up the Livingstons. So desperate and lost I took her advice. To my luck( a pure blessing) the girl who was supposed to be living with the Livingstons had just canceled and Patricia told me there was a free room. She also told me she would let Leigh move in with me and we could each pay half of the original amount they charge. We got a great deal with this here situation. We are each paying a certain amount and in return we get an amazing family, breakfast and dinner served to us everyday, a clean apartment, our beds are made every week day, bathroom is spotless and we get Spanish conversations all the time. I couldn't ask for a better situation and a better way to spend my last two months in Buenos Aires.

The best thing about all of this is that I am living two blocks from the Roadhouse...(the first place I lived upon moving to this country). I know the neighborhood, the metro stops, the shopping, grocery stores, laundry stores and good running routes. Life is great! I am so thankful for the way things turned out and I will only be able to enjoy my last few precious moments on this South American Independent journey...

Home in just a few weeks...

Mi Familia en Argentina!

The Family visit!!!!

Here we are at Il Fango-for my concert! Leigh was a part of the family clearly...


And here are all my supportive friends who came too!


My parents and Joe left about two weeks ago. What a fabulous trip we all had. Ten days in Argentina as a family was awesome. There was however one HUGE ingredient missing and that was my best friend and dear sister, Rose. She was missed beyond explanation...

Even though she wasn't with us...we were still reminded of her ;)



I truly loved showing the family my life here. I showed them almost every barrio(neighborhood) in B.A, we went to San Telmo, Recoleta, San Martin, Victoria for my concert with "La San Francisco" and Palermo.

Each day was filled with lots of eating, drinking, walking and talking. We covered a LOT in the ten days they were here. We even managed to go to Mendoza for a few of them as well. Mendoza is beautiful. Its a cute city right in the middle of the most majestic mountains- famous for wine and olive oil vineyards.(PARADISE).

The first half of our trip was spent around Buenos Aires. My parents stayed in a FABULOUS hotel- "Melia Boutique Plaza" right in Recoleta across the street from my (now old) apartment. This hotel was incredbile. The inside was decorated with things that looked as though they were on the Titanic, aka amazing antiques. A huge breakfast with everything you can imagine was offered each morning with endless amounts of alfajores(argentine cookies with dulce de leche).

Our hotel


Our first night was a great night at La Cabana! It's a famous "parilla"(grill)place with great service and amazing wine and food.

Joe and dad smoking their stogies outside the restaurant.


Inside there is a real stuffed cow (we are such typical tourists-jaja!)


Mom and dad posing at yet another amazing dinner!


When my family first arrived, it was the weirdest feeling. It was almost as though I had just seen them(it had been four months). It felt totally natural to have them in my new city...however at times it was a little difficult being the only Spanish speaker and tour guide the entire 10 days. Never have I ever been stared at more and spoken to in English by every local as I did when my family was with me. Guess we are PRETTY OBVIOUS Americans?....


Here are Joe and I in La Boca! We had a wonderful day here watching the tango dancers, seeing all the colorful buildings and taking tons of pictures.


Mendoza was the second part of our trip. We stayed in a huge modern apartment in the center of the city which was wonderful. We walked around the first day and spoke with different tourist companies about good wine tours to go on and what not. The second day we took a bus an hour outside the main city square. When we got to the mountain cabin, Joe and dad prepared themselves for their two hour 4x4 ride around the mountains while mom and I hoisted ourselves onto horses backs. We took a very dangerous and sometimes terrifying route around, through up and over the mountains and saw stunning views of Mendoza. It was such a blast to be able to share this with my mom, and I know she loved it.

Joe on his 4x4


Here is mom and our trek guide. I was so proud of her for doing this.


The same day, after we did our horse back riding and 4x4 activity, we got back to the city and went to a serene and clean spa. When we walked in the door, classical music was coming through the speakers, there were avian bottles lined up at the bar with a dish full of Argentine mints. Joe and I sat our in the living room on the perfectly clean violet sofa's while mom and dad had their massages. Once it was our turn Joe and I went got into our robes....went into the HOT sauna- thought I was going to faint, and then we each had an incredible massage topped off with a cool glass of orange juice.

In addition to the 4x4's the wine tour and the horseback riding, our tour guide in Mendoza also recommended we go to the best, cheapest and most secret "asado" in Argentina. It was only 100 pesos per person and with this cost includes endless amounts of wine and a five course meal. Well, that night we had the most incredible dinner of my life. I felt like a greek goddess with the fruits and foods of heaven. We took a taxi half hour outside the main square and arrived at this wine vineyard. where we were greeted by the owner upon entering the parking lot. He led us through a tree lined pathway down with twinkly lights guiding our vision, underneath the building into a dark and mysterious wine cellar. He opened a little wooden door and as we entered into our own private room we noticed the HUGE amounts or "starter" foods already set up on the table. I mean THE BIGGEST AMOUNT OF FOOD I had ever seen for four people.

The first course


The rest of that evening was amazing and special. It was the night where we laughed the most together, told fun and interesting stories, talked about sad and serious things as well, but mostly just truly, truly enjoyed the "moment" together. We lived it up as much we could, eating, talking, drinking etc. We missed you a lot Rose.

We had many more great meals, wine tastings and lounging times in Mendoza which was lovely especially for my VERY HARD WORKING parents and brother; for me, this had turned into normal life (don't hate me...I'll be in the real world soon enough). We went back to Buenos Aires that Thursday and had a few great last hours together. The family left on a Friday and it was sad to see them go, but I remembered that I had exactly two months from that day left in Argentina. Two months to do everything I wanted, see everything I need to see, speak as much Spanish as possible etc.

Now with 5 weeks left I am sitting in my new host family's house, listening to Frank Sinatra, kicking around a blue balloon that was left over from their party last night. My host family is incredible, I could not BE HAPPIER to have moved out of my old apartment into a new situation, a change of scenery and a new experience for my last 1.5 months in BA. My next post will be about my host family- The Livingston's because they are seriously the most fascinating and adorable people I have met in this country. To be continued...

Thanks for everything Mom and Dad!