Bring on the DOMS

Stop sniggering at the back. And erase from your mind images of buxom ladies clad in Lycra or leather or rubber or PVC, wearing stockings and wielding a whip. They're not the doms I'm talking about.

This is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, the poorly understood phenomenon of muscles aching 24-48 hours after exercise. I expect to be in for a dose of DOMS on Sunday. I have finally joined a gym 2 blocks up the road from here. I spent an hour and a half in there this afternoon, my first time in a gym in about 2 months. So I tried to take it a bit easy, but being a competitive sort of person probably did more than was wise under the circumstances. Going back again tomorrow and doing some more exercise might alleviate or even prevent the DOMS but if not I'm going to be sore on Sunday.

To anyone thinking “but you tango every night, that's exercise” I have to say tango doesn't meet my definition of exercise. It doesn't get my heart rate up above 120bpm, doesn't get my pulse that high for at least an hour, and doesn't get me out of breath. Similarly west coast swing doesn't count as exercise in my book. Modern jive (some call it ceroc) fits the bill, but so far as I can tell that's not on offer in Buenos Aires (and nor is west coast swing). If you happen to know anywhere I can dance west coast swing or modern jive in Buenos Aires do please let me know.

I'm still being very lazy during the days: getting up late, faffing about on-line and wasting time. A good friend says that's OK, I'm allowed 6 weeks of laziness before being ready to get on with stuff. Progress on learning Spanish/Castellano is almost non-existent. That promised blog post entirely in Castellano is going to be a very short one at this rate.

Oh well, one step at a time. The gym is a good start.

For those keeping count, and for me in a few months time when I'll have forgotten, my tango inventory since the last blog post is:

• Tuesday afternoon        - Group class at Caserón Porteño
• Tuesday night               - Porteño y Bailarín
• Wednesday night          - Sueño Porteño
• Thursday afternoon       - Private lesson with Maya
• Thursday night              - Niño Bien

There are a few new photos in the milongas set at Flickr.

I had planned to go to El Beso tonight. El Beso is a traditional milonga in a rather small venue. If you're not there when the doors open, or you don't have a reservation then you might not get in. Since I've adapted rather well to Argentinian time keeping I thought I'd call and make a reservation. It turned out to be a good thing to do. El Beso no longer runs on Friday nights. It still appears in some of the milonga listings, including the one I refer to every day.

It's a bank holiday weekend back at home in the UK. Traditionally that means bad weather, and indeed the forecast is not good. I hope the weathermen are being their usual hopeless selves(*) and the weather turns out to be uncharacteristically good. If you're planning a barbeque I hope it goes well. And if you're dancing somewhere, sometime, have a great time.


*Honestly, in what other profession can you get it wrong almost every single day of the week and still have a job at the end of the month?

Like a kid in a candy store

There are 128 milongas each week on the Caserón Porteño tango map. That's between 10 and 27 milongas each day. Other listings are available and not all milongas are listed. Punto Tango lists nearly 200 group classes each week, the print edition of el tangauta lists about 500 group classes each week. There are countless teachers offering private lessons. And I'm only here for another 5 months!

There are limits to how many classes, practicas and milongas it is possible to fit into 1 day, or 1 week, or 1 month. With so many possibilities and so little time I might never become a regular at any of them. I'm not going to try every one of those practicas or milongas. Some I can rule out for location, or timing, or type, or music. But even so, it's going to take a while to try the ones I want to and decide which ones work best for me.

It really is like being a kid in a candy store. My candy selections milongas for the last few days were Entre tango y tango at Centro Región Leonesa, and La Viruta at Club Armenia on Friday night, Club Gricel on Sunday night, and Confiteria La Ideal on Monday evening. There are a few new photos on Flickr. I've created some sets so you can jump straight to the milongas if you prefer.

ColorTango

Last night (Wednesday) ColorTango played at "La Garufa" milonga in Konex, close to the Abasto shopping mall. I have heard people rave about them and I thought they were very good indeed. It was really nice to dance to a live orchestra. There are a handful of photos over at Flickr. It was a nice bonus to bump into Sonya, an Australian girl I met here in December. We danced a couple of tandas and she said my dancing has improved.

I went to La Garufa with Isabelle after a we pigged out at a restaurant in Palermo. Isabelle had bife de chorizo and a huge salad, I had bife de lomo and a mountain of chips. The food was plentiful but nothing special. We talked mostly in Spanish which I thought would be good practice for tonight's Spanglish event. She's flying home on Saturday - volcano permitting. Her Spanish is far better than mine and I was pleased to understand and be understood. I didn't expect it to be so easy tonight.

Spanglish? More of a shambles really and very few native Spanish speakers. I didn't bother to stay. Maybe I'll look in again next week, maybe I won't.

My private lesson this afternoon with Maya was much more productive. The list of technique things for me to practice and improve is getting longer. It's a good job I'm here for a while!

Earlier in the week, on Monday afternoon I did a couple of touristy things: visited El Ateneo and the Galerias Santa Fe shopping centre. El Ateneo is a bookshop which was originally a theatre. It's a rather more interesting building to look at than most bookshops as you can see in the photos over at Flickr. The attraction at Galerias Santa Fe is not the shopping (it's only a small mall with nondescript shops) but the ceilings. There are a few photos in my Flickr steam (the colour has been enhanced a bit because the flash on the camera wasn't powerful enough to illuminate the ceiling properly). You could sit in the comfy chairs in El Ateneo, or in the cafe section and soak up the surroundings for half an hour quite easily. Galerias Sante Fe might hold your attention for 5 minutes.

Monday night at Salon Canning was disappointing. It may not be the "best" milonga for me but it's very convenient - only a 10-15 minute walk along Scalabrini Ortiz from where I'm staying. If you're interested in what it looks like, there's a picture of it early in the night, before the floor gets crowded in the Flickr photostream. Vals is not my favourite form but I was determined to try. Unfortunately I made the mistake of starting the night with a vals and compounded it by dancing with a rather short Argentinian girl. It certainly wasn't a good first dance but it wasn't that bad. Her assessment was less favourable; she thanked me after the first track of the tanda and walked off.

It's a good job I'm not a local; I'd have had to fall on my sword. Confidence dented I sat out for a bit and the floor got busier. I carefully avoided the vals and milonga tandas for the rest of the night. I danced some tango tandas with other people later which went better.

On Tuesday night after Maya's group class at Caseron Porteno I went to Practica X (pictures at Flickr). It was rather less crowded than on my visit in December. Although all the dancers were a really high standard, they seemed not quite as good as on my previous visit. Maybe they'd gone somewhere else this week.

Tonight it's not too late to go dancing. Perhaps Nino Bien. And for the weekend, well more dancing obviously!

Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend. If you've been affected by the travel disruption caused by the Icelandic volcano and you're travelling this weekend then I hope it goes smoothly for you. If you're dancing somewhere, have fun :-) And if you have something special planned and want to share the details, I'd love to hear them.

(If you post a comment but don't want me to publish it, just say so.)

Slowing down

"Remember, slow down" were Amiee's parting words as she turned and walked away on Friday afternoon. I walked back into Jardin Botanico, which you can see here from my balcony, and did just that. Sat on the benches, meandered round the paths, stroked some of the cats and took a few more photos (you can see some of them at Flickr).

At Los Consagrados last night, Cherie said something similar, along the lines of "forget the Anglo-Saxon rush, rush, rush. In tango there is time. Take it slowly". I danced some not-too-shabby tandas after that.

Settling in to the "manana manana" mindset is not easy, at least on the tango front. Since my private lesson on Thursday I've done another group class and been to three more milongas. Soho Tango at Villa Malcolm on Thursday, Parakultural at Salon Canning on Friday, and Los Consagrados again last night.

I'm being much more South American about the other objectives I set myself! Still no regular exercise program, still no Spanish learned. And I haven't bothered to do a blog post about the irritations of life here (which admittedly are pretty trivial). But I will still go to Spanglish on Thursday.

For the rest of this afternoon I'm going across the road to sit in Jardin Botanico. I'll take the Spanish books with me, just in case. And tonight more tango at La Glorieta.

How was your weekend, what have you been doing? Have you been rushing around in an Anglo-Saxon way, or taking it easy in a South American way?

Faffing around

It's been a very lazy week for me so far. Monday night was Lunes de Tango at Club Gricel, Tuesday evening I did Maya's group class at Caseron Porteno, and last night tried TangoLab at Club Villa Malcolm. So it sounds like I have been busy, but I've been frittering the days away with reading blogs, daydreaming, facebooking and other non-productive stuff.

I can't spend 6 months (well, I could!) doing basically nothing; I need some more specific goals, ones to be done during the days. The 2 main reasons for being here are to dance and improve my tango, and learn Spanish. Group classes, private lessons and lots of milongas will help with the tango. The learning Spanish needs more work!

So here are some publicly stated goals for the Spanish -

1. Attend Spanglish next Thursday.
2. Publish a blog post entirely in Spanish in 1 month, 3 months and 6 months time.
3. Achieve at least an 1800 word vocabulary by October.

Another objective is to get back into a regular exercise regime. Tango is not exercise! I've made a start on this but need to do more. It's going to have to be outdoor exercise, there's not enough money in my budget to go to a gym.

Last week the weather here was great, mid 20s, sunny, blue skies - very nice indeed. The last couple of days have been a different story. Still quite warm but lots of rain - not exactly encouraging for outdoor exercise. We're back to dry today with showers possible and a forecast of 22 degrees and sunny again tomorrow. Well I am a Brit, we can't help but talk about the weather!

I've got a private lesson with Maya this afternoon and tonight I'll probably go to Nino Bien at Centro Region Leonesa.

Now, to all those folks at home (especially the non-facebook ones) who wanted to hear about my "adventures" - what have you been up to, what are your goals for the next 6 months?

First night's dancing - done

I'd forgotten how intimidating the Buenos Aires milonga pisos (dancefloors) can be. But thanks to encouragement from some friendly tangueras I did dance a few tandas and a chacarera last night.

I arrived at Los Consagrados at about 6.30 after a short taxi ride. The taxi prices have gone up since I was last here. The meter started at $4.60 instead of $3.80. What I guestimated as a $12 peso ride actually came to few centavos over $14. The taxi driver didn't want a $100 note - they usually don't - but accepted a $10 and a $2 which were the only other notes I had. So that was me $2 up on the evening. Do that about another 100 times and I'll recoup my pickpocketed loss.

The floor wasn't too crowded when I arrived, but my friends weren't there yet. The hostess seated me at Ruben and Cherie's table as I asked. I had plenty of opportunities to cabeceo the ladies seated on the other side of the room. But I was content to watch those dancing and maybe pick a few out to cabeceo later. That might have just been an excuse to cover up feeling intimidated.

Ruben arrived some time later, without Cherie who had stayed home. Ruben speaks about as much English as I do Spanish so we managed "hello" and a couple of pleasantries and that was it. I started work on my Spanish today!

Some of Ruben and Cherie's students arrived, including Carol and Martin, Flo, and Cheryl. My friend and part inspiration for this crazy trip, Sally, also arrived. So I had some friendly faces to dance with but remained glued to my seat. I wasn't really enjoying the music - lots of valses, Biaggi and D'Arienzo type of stuff. I prefer the likes of Di Sarli but most of the milonga DJs don't. And the floor was more crowded and more intimidating. Carol was the first to persuade me out of my seat. We danced the last tango of a tanda and a litle while later I had part of a tanda with Sally.
After the lottery draw  (none of us at Ruben and Cherie's table won anything) came the chacarera. Sally had commented earlier in the evening that she liked the chacarera but rarely got asked to dance it. I like it too (it's an Argentinian folk dance which reminds me of a barn dance) although I'm not great on the steps. But that doesn't matter, it's just for fun. So we danced the chacarera and I think I only went wrong once. Later I danced a vals tanda with Cheryl and a Di Sarli tanda with Sally. The piso no longer seemed so intimidating and it was just the music keeping me in my seat. I'll have to work out where they play the music I prefer, or better still, adapt.

I'll be dancing outdoors in the bandstand at La Glorieta tonight. I hope it's not as windy as last time I was there. Knowing it might be I'll go prepared.

1 week in

That's an exaggeration, I've not been here a week yet. But I am one (work) week into my 6 month sabbatical. Here is Buenos Aires and I've come to dance and improve my tango and learn Spanish. I might do a few other things while I'm here but tango and Spanish are the only objectives right now.

This blog will start out as a diary. It will let anyone who cares or is remotely interested in what I'm doing know what I'm doing. And in 6 months, or 6 years, or even just a few days from now, remind me what I've been doing.

So here is the story so far...

Arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning. Less than 2 hours after landing at Ezezia International airport I was in my hotel on Avenida Cordoba in the microcentro district of Buenos Aires. My reservation here was for just 6 nights. In that time I intended to find somewhere to stay for the next 6 months.

After 3 days of scuttling around I have found a room in a flat on Av. Santa Fe, opposite Jardin Botanico. I hope it's going to be OK, but if not I can always find somewhere else. I looked at about a dozen places and it's amusing to compare the reality with the descriptions. In my book a "beautiful apartment" wouldn't have paint flaking off the walls, or electrical sockets hanging out the wall on the cable, or a white bath that was actually last white a decade or more ago. I could have looked at more places but really couldn't be bothered. It's surprising how much effort there is in arranging appointments to view places with people who don't share the same sense of urgency or purpose. Anyway it's sorted now and I'll move in on Monday morning.

The only glitch so far was being pickpocketed on Thursday afternoon. I'm almost certain it happened on the subway, on linea C between the 9 de Julio and Av. de Mayo stops. The carriage was jam packed full of people. Among those squeezing their way in at 9 de Julio were 2 local girls, probably in their mid-twenties (but I'm rubbish at estimating peoples' ages correctly). As the train lurched out of the station one of them fell against me. She wouldn't have fallen over, there was no room for that, but I caught her hand and she held on to mine until the next stop. Both girls got off at Av. de Mayo. About 2-3 hours later I found I had no wallet. Now I might have dropped it, or it might have been stolen somewhere else, but it was in a zipped pocket and I'm pretty sure the girl on the train pinched it. Next time I see someone falling over I'll leave them to it! I lost a tatty wallet, a debit card and a couple of hundred pesos cash, and (I thought) my UK SIM card. It turned out I didn't actually lose the SIM card but I didn't know that until after I'd spent an hour on the phone to O2 (thank goodness for Skype) trying to sort it out. I'm sure most pond life is more clued up than the "customer services" numpties I spoke to. At least stopping the debit card was a painless experience.I tried reporting the theft to Tourist Police. They said I'd have to report it to the subway police at Boedo station. Since I won't be making an insurance claim I think I'll pass on the aggravation of that one!

My reward for having sorted out some accommodation is to go and tango. I planned to go to La Ideal last night since it's only a 10 minute walk from my hotel, but after eating a ridiculously cheap pizza (pizza and soft drink for $17 (that's Argentinian pesos, not US dollars) - about 3 quid) I decided to leave it until tonight.

So I'm about to set off to Los Consagrados at Centro Region Leonesa. Hopefully I'll meet some friends from my previous visit to Buenos Aires, and dance some tandas and munch a few empanadas. It's an early milonga, finishing at 22:00 so I might go on somewhere else afterwards.