Day 153 (November 22): What a week it's been!
I'm pretty tired. We've been sleeping on a lousy bed for two weeks and almost every night we get woken up by at least one child. We're averaging 1.3 bloody noses per night because we run the air conditioner a lot, drying out the air. The rest of the time, though, we're having a great experience. Too bad we need sleep.
Tuesday:
This was our 150th day. A clever writer would make subtle allusions to Waiting for Guffman and sesquicentennials but I am not that correspondent. Sorry. After we slept off our food party hangover, we tackled school and then walked to a Spanish class/tutoring session in a nearby neighborhood. The walk nearly killed the kids so we arrived in prime condition, of course.
We found the tutor through "experiences" on AirBnb, which I had previously disparaged. It has turned into a very useful service and we were really lucky to find Monica and her daughter Diana. As usual, the twins more or less opted out but Henry hung in for about half the lesson. Monica is a retired accountant and an excellent, patient teacher. I'm really impressed that she engaged Elise, who took five years of Spanish twenty years ago, me, who took several years of several other languages, also in another millenium, and Lily, who sometimes barely knows english.
After class we walked to the incredible Botanic Garden, where we really enjoyed a tunnel of flowering shrubs and some nearby sculptures. The garden is a wonderful, quiet space adjacent to one of the busiest commercial strips I've seen in the downtown.
We rewarded the kids with some time on the carrousel in our neighborhood park (Parque Las Heras).
Wednesday:
We had two goals for this day: do a bunch of school and go to the "not touching is forbidden" kids' museum. The first went well and the second was a successful failure. First, you have to know that there's a space called Centro Cultural Recoleta, which is named for its neighborhood. Like the culture center where we enjoyed the Le Parc exhibit on Sunday, this is also a free public art space but, in this instance, much more experimental.
We warmed up by having lunch at the adjacent Hard Rock Cafe. This was an experience that I coveted as a young traveler but this franchise lacked all of the exotic appeal that I associated with the HRC in places like London. But the server spoke english, the menu was familiar, there were drums to play in the foyer and we got to watch retro music videos the entire time. Win!
The museum offered a series of spaces of widely varying content and styles. We passed a room in which several people were performing modern dance but I couldn't tell whether they were performing together or individually. There was a relaxation room that was the highlight, with thick carpeting spread over an undulating floor. There was a drawing room, the highlight for Lily, with paper, pencils and various stencils (I know them as French Curves from drafting classes) available for use.
The "Museum for Participation in Sciences" was not available because we had misunderstood the hours. Fortunately, the resting and drawing rooms were so appealing that this wasn't a problem. We got home, I improvised a a steak dinner (lomo!) and, reluctantly started the night.
Thursday:
School first, of course. We had plans to meet a family that this also taking a gap year. I stumbled on a website called BAExpats and posted an offer to meetup and I'm glad we did. Michael and Katy are Irish and German, respectively and they have the most globally astute three kids I could imagine. Michael's work has moved them around so the kids are multilingual cultural chameleons.
First, the twins nearly attacked Emily and Sofi with hugs and squeals. Older girls who speak english!!! Second, their 12 year old son taught Henry magic tricks with a card deck. Third, Lily and their 14-year old daughter slid into side conversation of tweener/teen understanding. Fourth, Ali and Cate made friends in the lower level of the ice cream parlor we occupied. They didn't speak the same language (I don't think) but they left as besties with unachievable plans to reunite.
Meanwhile, Elise and I had the opportunity to chat with Katy and Michael. I felt as though I was living in one of the podcasts I've listened to. Their story is similar and yet very different. They are spending the year on one continent (South America); they are only planned out a few weeks; they have left a country (Bolivia) because of political unrest; they're coming to grips with teaching school to their own kids.
We had met them in their neighborhood, San Telmo. This is one the guidebooks warn about ominously. I felt none of this worry. Is it down market from Recoleta and Palermo? Yes, but so is most of Portland! This is always the dilemma with guidebooks. Most editors are concerned with some visitor who has never left the US, and rightly so. But until you go it's hard to know.
We enjoyed a great walk through some very old streets that, again, could have been in Paris or another old and "great" European city. At the guidebook's direction, we snapped our picture in front of a house that is 2.5 meters wide. We wandered the aisles of a long-running indoor market, with both food and retail vendors for everything from antiques to contemporary leatherwork. Then we were no longer enjoying ourselves on account of the heat and arguments in souvenir shops (we are staunchly anti-snow globe).
One slow taxi ride later, we were back in the apartment. We fetched an assortment empanadas from the place our friends told us were the best in BA (they were excellent but my sample is still small) and declared it dinner. Not too much later we were asleep. Two kids and one bloody nose later, it was Friday morning and time to start school again.
Friday
Henry got a haircut.
We went to our neighborhood park and enjoyed the carrousel, the exercise stations and the Jaconda.
The week ended with a date night (thanks to our Cousin Network for finding a babysitter). The prices here are so confusing that in a nice steakhouse, we nearly ordered a dish to share until our waiter laughed and explained (in Spanish) that the dish was for at least four people. I settled for something much smaller while Elise got the short ribs.
Tuesday:
This was our 150th day. A clever writer would make subtle allusions to Waiting for Guffman and sesquicentennials but I am not that correspondent. Sorry. After we slept off our food party hangover, we tackled school and then walked to a Spanish class/tutoring session in a nearby neighborhood. The walk nearly killed the kids so we arrived in prime condition, of course.
We found the tutor through "experiences" on AirBnb, which I had previously disparaged. It has turned into a very useful service and we were really lucky to find Monica and her daughter Diana. As usual, the twins more or less opted out but Henry hung in for about half the lesson. Monica is a retired accountant and an excellent, patient teacher. I'm really impressed that she engaged Elise, who took five years of Spanish twenty years ago, me, who took several years of several other languages, also in another millenium, and Lily, who sometimes barely knows english.
After class we walked to the incredible Botanic Garden, where we really enjoyed a tunnel of flowering shrubs and some nearby sculptures. The garden is a wonderful, quiet space adjacent to one of the busiest commercial strips I've seen in the downtown.
We rewarded the kids with some time on the carrousel in our neighborhood park (Parque Las Heras).
Wednesday:
We had two goals for this day: do a bunch of school and go to the "not touching is forbidden" kids' museum. The first went well and the second was a successful failure. First, you have to know that there's a space called Centro Cultural Recoleta, which is named for its neighborhood. Like the culture center where we enjoyed the Le Parc exhibit on Sunday, this is also a free public art space but, in this instance, much more experimental.
We warmed up by having lunch at the adjacent Hard Rock Cafe. This was an experience that I coveted as a young traveler but this franchise lacked all of the exotic appeal that I associated with the HRC in places like London. But the server spoke english, the menu was familiar, there were drums to play in the foyer and we got to watch retro music videos the entire time. Win!
The museum offered a series of spaces of widely varying content and styles. We passed a room in which several people were performing modern dance but I couldn't tell whether they were performing together or individually. There was a relaxation room that was the highlight, with thick carpeting spread over an undulating floor. There was a drawing room, the highlight for Lily, with paper, pencils and various stencils (I know them as French Curves from drafting classes) available for use.
The "Museum for Participation in Sciences" was not available because we had misunderstood the hours. Fortunately, the resting and drawing rooms were so appealing that this wasn't a problem. We got home, I improvised a a steak dinner (lomo!) and, reluctantly started the night.
Thursday:
School first, of course. We had plans to meet a family that this also taking a gap year. I stumbled on a website called BAExpats and posted an offer to meetup and I'm glad we did. Michael and Katy are Irish and German, respectively and they have the most globally astute three kids I could imagine. Michael's work has moved them around so the kids are multilingual cultural chameleons.
First, the twins nearly attacked Emily and Sofi with hugs and squeals. Older girls who speak english!!! Second, their 12 year old son taught Henry magic tricks with a card deck. Third, Lily and their 14-year old daughter slid into side conversation of tweener/teen understanding. Fourth, Ali and Cate made friends in the lower level of the ice cream parlor we occupied. They didn't speak the same language (I don't think) but they left as besties with unachievable plans to reunite.
Meanwhile, Elise and I had the opportunity to chat with Katy and Michael. I felt as though I was living in one of the podcasts I've listened to. Their story is similar and yet very different. They are spending the year on one continent (South America); they are only planned out a few weeks; they have left a country (Bolivia) because of political unrest; they're coming to grips with teaching school to their own kids.
We had met them in their neighborhood, San Telmo. This is one the guidebooks warn about ominously. I felt none of this worry. Is it down market from Recoleta and Palermo? Yes, but so is most of Portland! This is always the dilemma with guidebooks. Most editors are concerned with some visitor who has never left the US, and rightly so. But until you go it's hard to know.
We enjoyed a great walk through some very old streets that, again, could have been in Paris or another old and "great" European city. At the guidebook's direction, we snapped our picture in front of a house that is 2.5 meters wide. We wandered the aisles of a long-running indoor market, with both food and retail vendors for everything from antiques to contemporary leatherwork. Then we were no longer enjoying ourselves on account of the heat and arguments in souvenir shops (we are staunchly anti-snow globe).
One slow taxi ride later, we were back in the apartment. We fetched an assortment empanadas from the place our friends told us were the best in BA (they were excellent but my sample is still small) and declared it dinner. Not too much later we were asleep. Two kids and one bloody nose later, it was Friday morning and time to start school again.
Friday
Henry got a haircut.
We went to our neighborhood park and enjoyed the carrousel, the exercise stations and the Jaconda.
The week ended with a date night (thanks to our Cousin Network for finding a babysitter). The prices here are so confusing that in a nice steakhouse, we nearly ordered a dish to share until our waiter laughed and explained (in Spanish) that the dish was for at least four people. I settled for something much smaller while Elise got the short ribs.
Quite an update. Sorry about the poor evening experiences - poor bedding, bloody noses, heat, etc. - but overall the experience there seems to have been in sync with what you anticipated and you all negotiated through numerous new activities and connections. Nice.
ReplyDeleteI am glad things are going well. We are going to have turkey for Thanksgiving - so I suspect you will be eating better than we are. You may tell your children that it is precisely 5 weeks since I last had a hug from any of them and that I miss them.
ReplyDeleteI think you figured out that "unknown" is Grandpa! :)
Delete