Diego and Laura (website to follow) have never met, but their teaching couldn’t be more complementary if they were a team. Each is, in theory, working with me on different aspects of my dance, but it all meshes together so well it’s as if they planned their privates with me together.
Today’s private was with Laura, and I find it hard to believe we covered so much in such a short time …
Continue reading My teachers here have never met, but they work in perfect harmonyEverything in BsAs takes longer than you think. Getting cash. Picking up trousers that should have been waiting for me on Friday. Recharging a SUBE card. You name it.
All of which explains why I didn’t make my planned visit to Nuevo Chiqué, making this a milongaless day … !
Continue reading A Chiquéless day, but La Brigada for dinnerGetting up at 6.30am was a severe shock to my system, despite being good and going to bed before midnight. I did survive working for a living, but was very tired afterwards. I’d never previously mastered the art of the afternoon nap, but this time I went straight to bed and was asleep in minutes.
While I slept, Steph and Tina were somewhat busy …
Continue reading Learning to nap, and Cafetin del Almagro LightSteph and Tina went shopping at a market, had lunch, and visited Cementerio de la Recoleta. I don’t plan to visit that one, but will at some point go to Cementerio de la Chacarita to say hello to Pugliese and Troilo.
While they were spending time with people of varying degrees of aliveness, I opted for a lazy day at home before just one milonga …
Continue reading La Glorieta de Belgrano, with accidental gelatoNot sleeping after Salon Canning finally caught up with me at 5pm yesterday! Steph had arrived at noon, and I was more sleep-deprived than she was! We had a stroll together, bought some pastries and then I had to admit defeat at go to bed at 5pm.
Steph optimistically woke me at 10pm to get ready for La Catedral visit 2, as La Juan D’Arienzo was playing live, but while I got up for a while, I soon went back to bed …
Continue reading Setting up my Buenos Aires office; prepare for shorter blogs!A friend suggested I might get more sleep if I weren’t writing my blog posts. In truth, I’m buzzing so much when I get home from milongas that there’s no chance I’d sleep anyway if I tried going straight to bed. Writing is for me a way of winding down, even if I do also do it for a living!
I have made it to bed on previous nights, albeit sometimes at 5am. Last night, however, I was so euphoric that I might as well have had a nose full of cocaine for all the hope there was of sleep …
Continue reading Last ones standing: Closing Salon Canning at 4am (Video)Every day is a school day in Argentina. Today I learned: trust Terry on milongas, but never on cafes! He’d seen our visit to Cafe Tortini, which was beautiful but had mediocre food at tourist prices, and told us we should instead have gone to Cafe de Los Angelitos. So we did, with him. It was beautiful, but had rubbish food at tourist prices.
Service was so slow it took 45 minutes to get our glasses of water. We wanted coffee, but didn’t dare order it – we’d have been there for another hour or more. When presenting the bill, the waiter pointedly told us that the total didn’t include service. I pointedly left the appropriate tip for the standard of service …
Continue reading Another grand cafe, then one of the best tango nights of my life!Yesterday we were unexpectedly transformed into tango performers, and today we equally unexpectedly qualified for the Nobel Prize for Sheer Bloody-minded Determination!
I promise today’s blog will be the very last time I will ever again mention SIMs and data …
Continue reading Qualifying for a Nobel Prize before a visit to BarajandoThere have been many notable achievements throughout history, from great scientific breakthroughs like the discovery of electricity, to social and political triumphs like voting rights for women.
I think it is, however, fair to say that all of these pale into insignificance against the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced: loading a sensible amount of data onto a local SIM in Argentina. There is a Nobel Prize for Sheer Bloody-minded Determination awaiting the first person to achieve it …
Continue reading Ok, there may have been two milongas today … and a kind of performanceI slept for about nine hours, though still felt that was about ten hours short of the required quota. However, we did nothing in the morning, so a bit of lazing was the perfect start to the day.
This was helped considerably by my foresight. I’d decided that a one-month stay was more like short-term living than long-term holidaying, so had brought with me some key home comforts – including my favourite tea, infusers, and pint mug …
Continue reading Accidentally achieving one of my goals by going to the wrong milonga
journey of a trainee tanguero 
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