The end of the week brought about the first real attempts at going out into the nightlife of the city. Here's a picture of some of us out at a bar in Recoletta on Wednesday night. From left to right is Eda (Turkey), Lawrence (England), Me, Gonzalo (Argentina - host family), and Leslie (American). This bar was great. It had an atmosphere of being really laid back and relaxed. The mojitos were amazing, the caipirinha's unbelievably strong, and the conversation almost completely in spanish. We all think Gonzalo has developed a huge crush on Leslie, so now we're trying to get the two of them together. For some reason Leslie doesn't seem to want to go for it though.
After hanging out at this bar for a while, we left and were pleasantly surprised to see it raining. Finally the heat has broken.
Thursday, Leslie and I found a little shoe store near the school that sells bazillions of specially designed dance shoes. I was like a kid in a candy store. For only $40 or $50, you could get special shoes with suede bottoms and steel reinforcement and everything. (I guess, as a dancer, I get excited about these things... but for you non-dancers, shoes like this cost over $100 in the States, and they usually come in black or nude, not every color of the rainbow in every imaginable design). So Leslie and I bought dance shoes, and thursday night we decided to break them in. Some of the students from school organized a trip to a Milonga, which is a special dance hall where the people dance Argentine Tango. The place was gorgeous. It was in a real proper ballroom like they have in the movies, with cathedral ceilings, giant chandeliers, and a buffed and polished wooden dance floor. Around the circumference of the floor were lots of tables where people sat and chatted and drank between sets.
The culture of a Milonga is particularly interesting. There are various different kinds of Tango, and the music plays 3 or 4 songs of the same kind of Tango followed by a random non-tango song to signal the end of the set. It's considered rude for a woman to ask a man to dance, so in order to get a partner, she has to sit at a table and look around and try to make eye contact with a guy. Then there's a quick exchange of glances and nods, and the guy comes over to ask the girl to dance. Once the two are dancing, social etiquette demands that they finish out the entire set of songs together. The dancing at Milonga's is quite serious, and it's also considered rude to dance if you don't know how. I made the mistake of accepting a guy's offer to dance without any knowledge of the dance itself, and the dude actually got pissed at me... I guess a lesson or two might be a good idea. Leslie, on the other hand, was the light of the dance floor. At least it was fun to watch her.
Last night we went out again, but with Tamara and Marc instead of Eda and Lawrence. We went to Palermo Viejo where there are loads and loads of outdoor terraces and a huge plaza where everyone was sitting outside, chatting away like in Paris or Rome. It was a great neighborhood, and I can definitely see why they say Palermo is the place to go.
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