On a roll

I had a really good weekend of dancing; Saturday night at Los Consagrados, and Sunday at Sueño Portenõ and El Beso.

The bicentennial celebrations have been playing havoc with the traffic in downtown Buenos Aires. The bus ride to Los Consagrados took about twice as long as usual so I arrived later than normal. The hostess was about to park me in a corner seat at the far end of the dance floor. It wouldn't have been a good place to sit. Fortunately Ruben saw us on the way past and invited me to join him. It's always a pleasure to sit at Ruben y Cherie's table - good company and good dancing. My castellano still hasn't advanced to the point that I can have a conversation with Ruben, and Cherie was feeling a bit unwell and wasn't there on Saturday, but they always have guests at their table and this night was no exception. Those guests are usually extranjeros, often English speakers and always friendly.

My dancing got off to a bit of a slow start but picked up nicely. About an hour before the end, as the numbers started to thin out, I moved to a table with a free seat about half way along the pista for a better cabeceo position. I've seen the guy sat at the table several times and assumed he was a local. It turned out he's another Brit and has been living here for several years. He came for a holiday and "forgot" to go home.

The bus ride home was more twisty and turny than Blackadder's most devious twisty turny thing. Lots of roads were closed and I had the impression the driver was making it up as he went along. It took even longer than the journey to get there and would almost have been quicker to walk.

On Sunday I tried Sueño Porteño at Boedo Tango. I've only been there on a Wednesday before, when it is always very busy. I wasn't sure what the numbers would be like because of the bicentennial celebrations and because of the torrential rain that started at about 6pm. I don't know all the locations in the city where there are special celebration events so decided to use el Subte (subway) instead of los colectivos (buses), figuring the journey time would be unaffected by any road closures. When I arrived a bit before 7:30pm it was only about one quarter to one third full. My friend arrived a little while later and we actually got a front row table. I guess they reached about half capacity by the time we left at midnight. By then I'd danced lots, watched an enthusiastic amateur bicentennial celebration dance by some of the regulars and sampled the Boedo Tango pizza. There are a few photos from the evening in my  milongas set at Flickr (and also a couple from the chacarera tanda at los Consagrados on Saturday).

While waiting for the bus home I got an invite by text to El Beso. The night was still young, there was still 3 hours of dancing to be had at El Beso so I went. When I arrived it was standing room only. Standing at the bar gave me much better cabeceo options than I'd had from a seat on Thursday night and I danced lots.

My first dance was with a French girl, Octavia, who arrived just a couple of days ago and is here for 6 months. I commented recently on Mari's "Proper" tango shoes post that I don't care what shoes a follower is wearing so long as we have a good dance. We danced a good tanda and afterwards I noticed that she was wearing an eye-catching pair of silver and black 4" stilettos. No, I haven't a clue whether they were CIFs or Payless. I really, really don't care. The point is they caught my eye and I watched her dance part of the first tango of the next tanda. When I'm not dancing and not trying to cabeceo someone I spend a lot of time watching the dancers' feet. Dancers will know what I mean. She had the most beautiful feet I have ever seen. Ever. Period. Dancers will know what I mean.

Anyway I stayed until closing time and rode home on the number 12 colectivo, buzzing after 2 really good nights of dancing. It feels like I've turned a bit of a corner after being here nearly 7 weeks. It feels comfortable, the crisis of confidence I had a few weeks ago a distant memory. I'm ready to learn new stuff, to improve (and maybe it will rub off on my castellano efforts too). I'm on a roll.