Playing Tourist

I hope 2010 is off to a great start for everyone! I just got home from taking Mom and Dad to the airport. We had a wonderful week together. It was exciting to share my life here with them. I learned a lot more about Buenos Aires as I guided them around. I realized how much I've learned about Argentina, the culture and Spanish. My parents don't speak Spanish, so I did a lot of translating. It seemed to be more difficult translating from Spanish to English. I thought it would be more difficult the other way around. They had to remind me to translate for them a number of times because I would forget they don't understand Spanish.

We did a lot of site seeing in the Capital and in the Province of Buenos Aires. Mom and Dad are now pros at riding the train and subway here. We spent a day in Tigre and walked around the market. Many of the vendors at the market were closed and the weather was a bit rainy, but we made the most of it and enjoyed the day.

We spent several days in the Capital being tourists. I've become so comfortable with Buenos Aires and getting around here that it was strange and fun to be a "tourist". We went to Puerto Madero (an old waterfront with brick warehouses that were converted into fancy loft apartments and restaurants a few years ago and a great place to walk), Plaza de Mayo and Casa Rosado (Argentina's equivalent of the White House, but the president doesn't actually live there); the Evita Museum; Palermo (a nice neighborhood with many nice parks); Recoleta neighborhood and cemetery; and last night, we went to a tango show. You can't come to Argentina and not see a tango show!

We also had a couple of low key days to sleep in, relax and walk around Ballester (my town). On Wednesday, we went to the comedor so Mom and Dad could see where I work and meet some of the people I work with. The comedor is closed until February and the families we serve rely on the comedor for food. We helped Beto pass out a month supply of food (pasta, rice, flour, oil, meat, milk, potatoes, onions, soup, etc) to each family. Beto and a couple others prepared the bags of food the day before. Each family received different amounts of food based on how many people are in the family. After all the families collected their food from the comedor, we went to a cafe and had coffee with Beto and his son. Beto gave my parents a history lesson on Argentina - very interesting. (I was exhausted after translating it all!)

On NYE, for dinner, I taught Mom & Dad how to make empanadas. Then, we sat on my roof and watched fireworks shooting off all around Ballester. It was incredible! It sounded like a war zone at midnight. I don't think I've even seen that many fireworks on the 4th of July. Some of the fireworks started around mid-afternoon on NYE and continued all night. The fireworks at midnight were the best though and lasted for about 30 minutes. It was like the finale of all the firework shows I've seen in the States.

Now, I'm off to summer camp with the youth from church until Friday.