Diary entry

It's been quite a varied week or so on the tango front with 7 milongas in 8 nights. I've been to the gym just about every other day, still not doing enough on the Spanish/castellano, and generally lazing around.

Last Friday I started the night at Salón Canning. It was about ¾ full and I danced a lot, with tourists (a group of girls from Texas and another group from Brisbane) and porteñas. When the last of the tall followers left just before closing time (4am) I gave up and walked the 3 blocks or so to La Viruta where there is free admission after about 3:30am. I don't seem to do well on getting dances at La Viruta so only danced a couple of tandas and munched my way through a plate of medialunas which they serve from about 4:30am. After 30 minutes of not dancing I called it a night and left just after 5:30am. It was tempting to stay until the end because there is a panaderia on the corner of Armenia and Honduras – which I pass on the way home – which opens at 6am and which serves all sorts of deliciousness. Being a bit of a PC addict there was the obligatory email, facebook and blog checking when I got home so it was 7am before I finally got to bed.

I must be getting old, late nights like this wipe me out for the “next” day. By the time I got up it was nearly time to head out to Saturday's milonga of choice – Los Consagrados. I danced quite a lot and if it hadn't been such a late one the night before would have liked to go on to Boedo Tango or Salón Canning in search of more dancing.

On Monday I was back at an only ½ full Salón Canning and apparently wearing Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility. Not a single dance in nearly 3 hours despite a front row seat.

On Wednesday orchestra Los Reyes del Tango played at La Garufa. I had heard they were good so went along to hear for myself. There are a few new photos in the milongas set at Flickr. Unlike a month earlier when ColorTango played at the same place there was a much smaller turnout – only about 50 people. I kept thinking more would arrive, and maybe the orchestra did too because they didn't play until about 2am. They sounded OK to me but I preferred ColorTango. With such a small crowd height-ism wasn't really working in my favour and I didn't dance much but the tandas I did were good. Sonya was there again and we spent quite a lot of time chatting about the multitude of group classes on offer every week.

I've been here for 6 weeks without a visit to El Beso, so on Thursday night I corrected that. The place was not quite full when I arrived at about 10pm; there were 3 empty tables in 2 of the corners. A corner seat isn't ideal for the cabeceo, especially when only targeting the taller followers, and I danced less than I wanted but had some nice dances.

Last night I went back to Entre tango y tango. Numbers were down on a month ago and once again there were more leaders than followers. Combined with my height-ism policy on followers the result was again fewer dances than I wanted.

My private lesson with Maya on Thursday went well again. As planned we spent most of the time concentrating on milonga. During a lesson like this I can switch between patterns and dance something not too boring for my partner. But as soon as I'm at an actual milonga my brain does a goldfish impression and everything goes out of my head. Maya is going to Europe for a few weeks soon and I'll be switching to lessons from Ruben y Cherie. No prizes for guessing what we'll be concentrating on.

One of the other things I mentioned in that post was the free drink at Niño Bien. I made some enquiries whether the same policy applies anywhere else. Apparently it doesn't and it only happens at Niño Bien. Shame!

By presidential decree it's a long (4-day) holiday weekend here in Argentina, to celebrate the bicentenary of the revolution in 1810 that lead to independence from Spain. There are all sorts of cultural events planned in various locations around Buenos Aires (and presumably elsewhere). Rather like a holiday weekend in the UK the weather forecast isn't brilliant but hopefully if the promised rain arrives it won't disrupt things too much. When I was here in December there was a big outdoor tango event planned for one Saturday evening which was cancelled because of rain...

Since I've mentioned the weather now I might as well add that the days of me sitting out on the balcony after breakfast (ie: somewhere between about 11am and 2pm) grabbing a few rays appear to be over. There are fewer sunny days now and the temperature is falling. Not really surprising since the trees are losing their leaves and we are well into autumn now.