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!