So I'm finally settled (a bit) in Buenos Aires and so far so good. It's of course a bit difficult to feel comfortable with a new family and for them to feel comfortable with me. But thus far things have been going well. For starters, the family is very welcoming and has included me in conversations. They have all lived in Buenos Aires for almost their entire lives, although the host mother has been a bit between the city and the province. The almost refers to the years they lived in Israel about an hour from Haifa before the Gulf War, during which they left the hardships and returned to Argentina.

Spanish is clearly their native language though while I haven't spoken to them in English I have noticed they do know many English words. Granted the eldest son is 30 and lives in California...overall the family is very worldly which I definitely like about them. My host sister is an artist studying at IUNA, the art university at which I have the option to take classes (although I think I omitted it in a previous post). The youngest of the three kids is my host brother, still a few years older than I, who was a professional basketball player as of last year and who is (although his track has been postponed due to an injury) on course to teach physical education.

Food to them is a top priority, which is probably why we get along well. Dinner is the time I talk with them most. Like everyone here, we eat around 10pm. It seems that everyone in the family cooks except the host father (though he apparantely taught my host brother a bit about cooking) so the food has really been great so far. Tonight for example we had a huge variety of food: tomatoes as though in a caprese salad, homemade onion rings, a sort of spinach cake, tuna on french bread, a potato salad, and left over asado.

Asado of course is the grilled meat I mentioned as one of the things I most looked forward to in coming to Buenos Aires. Yesterday host brother told me about a good place to play pick-up basketball on the weekends and I was about to go when my host mother told me we'd be eating a combination lunch-dinner at 4:30 (in the same way we eat brunch in the US). I got to the table to find a huge plate of different meats from the grill (de la parrilla) which was delicious. Of course I ate tons of food only to find out there was another huge plate of different types of meat...after which of course there was another plate of different types and at which point I was incredibly full but desperately wanted to try the different cuts of meat. Anyway my host brother is an asador which is a respected griller of the meat so he cooks it every Sunday. After which there was no chance of going to the park to place some "basquet" as it's called here.

Another thing I've tried is the mate. My host sister offered it to me a few mornings ago in its typical, bitter (amargo) form. Of course Argentineans are culturally extremely inclusive and love sharing things; thus mate tradition is to pass the mate around continuously from person to person while refilling it as it empties. So as my host sister passes it to me, she asks "No tienes la gripe, verdad?" ("You don't have swine flu, right"), which I thought was pretty comical given that I was living in their house and sharing everything else. Also when she handed me the mate (name of the cup into which the "yerba [herb] de mate" is poured) I responded with "gracias," thanking her...though apparently a porteno only says that when they're done.

When The family bickers some and jokes within itself a bit but they definitely enjoy each other and I'd much rather have a family with personality than a boring one. The first night with them (at which point I'd only been in the country about 30 hours) was quite terrifying despite their efforts to include me in conversation. The host parents weren't particularly difficult to understand but when my host siblings started talking I could've sworn they broke the sound barrier. Even now when Argentineans speak quickly I really can't differentiate between words. But my ability to understand my family is much improved and I'm sure it'll improve more, though I still have no way to understand what they say when they speak quickly.

I discovered through a comment about how strange the mix of music on the radio here is that my family is a big fan of a lot of American bands. My host father is a huge fan of classic rock; he has a friend who I think was in Deep Purple and has gone to Clapton, Kiss, and Rolling Stones concerts somewhat recently. My host sister went to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert with a prior student they hosted (it seems they've hosted a number of students. And of course they watch almost only American movies--my host father's favorite movie is Saving Private Ryan.

The apartment itself is quite nice. From the outside the door appears decrepit, but once inside everything is adequate. I say adequate because nothing in the apartment is really adorned other than with pictures of my host parents' granddaughter who was just born in California. Aside from a couple televisions (moderate sized by American standards...probably 35") there isn't furniture or anything that appears very valuable, but I prefer it this way. The apartment feels like a place in which people are really supposed to live which I like a lot. A have my own room with two windows, one of which leads to a balcony that overlooks the plaza across the street. The plaza has a carousel and usually has street vendors on its perimeter.


There are also two small patios and a terrace in the apartment that are quite nice, and I have wireless internet which is popular here but that many places still don't have.

So it's certainly nice that any worries about being put with a terrible family have been put to rest. It seems like other people in the group really like their families for the most part too but I'm pretty impressed with CIEE's ability to match students with families.