Weekend New York trip (long)

As I had some bureaucracy to fight at the Romanian embassy in NY, I took Friday and Monday off, the plan being to take care of business Friday and/or Monday and use the rest of the time to hang out in NY and of course tango! To save some cash, I got a room in Stamford, which I thought it was 20 miles north of NY on I95. With Priceline.com I got it at a Holiday Inn for $60 a night, which was a pretty good deal. Stamford, as it later turned out, it's actually about 40 miles north of midtown so next time I'll have to pay more attention to the distances ... The other idea I had was that I would trailer the motorcycle to the hotel, and take the bike to the city, as a bike is much easier to park. Assuming there would be parking at the hotel. Which there wasn't (well, there was PAID parking, but not for a car with a trailer attached). Something else I should ask in the future so I won't have to move the car around at 3AM while trespassing ...

Friday - the trip to NY

We (me and Debbi) left the house Friday around 10AM (to avoid rush hour) and we were hoping to hit Stamford by 2AM and then head to town for the afternoon milonga which starts at 4:30. Due to construction and heavy traffic it took us 6 hours to get to the hotel, so we decided to skip the afternoon milonga and just chill a bit and head into town early enough to have dinner and hang out a bit before the milonga. We left on the motorcycle around 7PM thinking we'd get into the city by 7:45 or so. Not so fast... It took us 2 hours to make the 40 miles to the city. Riding a motorcycle in stop and go traffic for two hours is not exactly that much fun. For those who are not aware, motorcycles are manual transmissions, and the clutch is operated by the left hand. When one goes in stop and go traffic, the clutch is basically used continuously. By the end of the two hour trip, I could not feel my hand anymore... On the up side, a few more of these trips and I'll be able to crush rocks with my bare left hand, who knows when that might get ... handy. Hey, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

Friday - the milonga @ the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant

We made to the restaurant by 9:20PM, and there was still a pre-milonga class going on, so we ordered food, taking the opportunity to check out the local talent. I saw a few women in the room I wanted to dance with, but they were virtually impossible to approach as they were in high demand and when they were not dancing, they were engaged in what appeared to be intimate conversations which I feel are rude to interrupt. They didn't appeared to be interested in dancing outside of their circle so I didn't even try. Other then Debbi, I only danced with a couple of women, one of them being C, whom I met at the Boston tango festival where she performed with one of the argentine instructors. She is a lovely dancer and I enjoyed every minute of the 2 (or maybe 3) tandas I danced with her. It turns out she doesn't dance socially much, for various reasons, which I think it's a shame. So I "made" her promise she'd go out more often ;-) While I certainly don't feel (anymore) like I have to dance every tanda, it was quite disappointing to dance so little, but it was (mostly) my own choice so I can't really complain.

Saturday - bike adventures

We got up late and headed into town around 3PM, thinking we'll have time to hang out before the Central Park Milonga which starts at 6PM. Good plan, but the bike broke down on the way there. So there I was on the side of the road taking the bike apart to track down what appeared to be an electrical problem. The first attempt to fix it didn't work, but the second time I was pretty sure I got it right and since it was 5PM already and we were still an hour away, I decided to take the chance and continue to ride to NY (as opposed to returning to the hotel to get the car). It turns out the issue was indeed fixed so we made it to Central Park a bit after 6PM.

Saturday - Central park milonga

It turns out Central Park is quite big and we didn't have the best directions, so it took us a while to track down the milonga, but we eventually heard the music and tracked it down. The dancing takes place in a little ronda with a statue of Shakespeare in the middle. The floor is concrete, so not exactly ideal, but it's not that terrible. Me and Debbi danced for the first 20-30 min or so and then we went to find new partners. A favorite follower of mine, R from NY was there and we danced together 3 or 4 tandas, and it was just as lovely as always. I also danced with someone new, N, she has a wonderful embrace and we had a lot of fun. The two hours that we had went by quickly and before we knew it, it was over.


Saturday - Lafayette milonga

In the evening we went to Lafayette milonga. I reviewed this milonga a while ago and nothing really changed. The level of dancing is much lower then all other milongas in NY, I actually only danced with Debbi, L, a follower from Boston who happened to be there and one tanda with a local which was OK, but nothing special. Interesting though, while I'd say that most dancers were between beginner & intermediate, the floor craft was decent. The milonga had live music with a duo, which sounded fine, but I didn't find it very inspiring to dance to.

Sunday - Sancha dance sneakers!

Over the last year I've seen scores of people talking about sancha dance sneakers and seen even more dancing in them, so since we knew there was a Sancha store in NY (8th ave & 53rd) we went there so now I'm the proud owner of one pair for about $40. And it turns out, they ARE very comfortable and great to dance tango in (just make sure you get the ones with hard soles, as they make ones with soft soles which are way to grippy for tango).

Sunday - Tango Porteno (Sea port) milonga

Now, this was the best milonga of this trip, and possibly the best I've been in NY ever. There were a few issues, the most important one being the floor, which is an old wooden deck, complete with cracks, splinters, warped planks, etc. I was in sneakers and sometime had a hard time, but some of the women were wearing high heels and I have no idea how they do it... They are my heroes! ;-) The other issue is that the dancing area is not delimited, so unlike a traditional milonga, where if you can keep your follower on the outside of the outer loop you can keep her safe, in this case it was not true, as there were bystanders, bicycles, kids running, etc. I don't know if that would be allowed by whoever owns the area, but it would be ideal if the dance area was cordoned off, which would keep both dancers safe from pedestrians and keep the pedestrians safe from being stabbed by a rogue boleo...

But there were scores of great dancers, and I got to dance with a few of my favorite NY dancers and even find new favorites. T was there and we danced several tandas which were a lot of fun. Sadly that happened at the height of the evening when it was the most crowded, so it was not nearly as fun as it could've been. Same with R, which I was so glad to see, as she is so awesome to dance with and we both enjoy tremendously dancing with each other. I danced again with N, who I met at the Central Park and she was lots of fun. And I found a new favorite, D, from NY. She looked familiar but I could not remember where I knew her from, so I went to introduce myself and I was surprised to see that she knew my name. It turns out we met at Adam's party in the spring, though I can't remember if we danced together, I would guess we didn't, as I'm sure I would've remembered. It wasn't easy to get her as she was in high demand, one leader in particular (fantastic dancer according to Deb) monopolized her for over an hour. Grrrrrrrr ;) But we go to dance a few tandas toward the end of the evening, and it was certainly worth the wait. She has am amazing embrace and an elegance in movements that reminded me of Marika (my first "tango crush"). Looking forward to dance with her again, hopefully on a better surface.

Monday - Oops, embassy closed until late

Monday at around 10:30 we arrived at the (Romanian) embassy where I had some papers to get notarized just to find out they would not open until 4PM. The original plan was to leave the NY area around noon heading to Boston. Leaving right after the business was taken care of would've put us on the road at around 6PM, and that seemed like a bad time to get out of NY. So, we decided to stay later, and since we were there ;-), we decided to stop by at the monday's milonga, as it's unlikely I'll be in NY on a monday evening any time soon.

Monday - Luna milonga

The milonga starts at 9:30 and unlike Boston, there were quite a few people waiting to get in, so the floor got busy right away. The level of dancing was mixed, from good to beginners. I was quite tired as the night before I only slept 3 hours and since I was going to drive to Boston after the milonga I only danced with a few people with whom I danced before. N, was the woman I met at the Tango Nuevo Fest in Montreal who was only been dancing at that time for 8 months, yet she's fantastic (she's both fun and technically proficient, which is not a combination easy to come by). We danced for a long time, maybe 4 or even 5 tandas until she had to leave as she had to get up in the morning. We had a blast. L, which I danced with before at various events is also a great dancer, but I'm having trouble maintaining a comfortable embrace for some reason, it could be height related.

Monday night - the drive home

One advantage of driving during the night is the complete lack of traffic. I set the car on cruise control at 75mph and that was that. About 2/3 of the way I had to pull over for a power nap. After about an hour I woke up, Deb woke up and we made the rest of the distance without incidents.

Conclusion

I love NY.

More conclusions :-)

Taking the bike on a trailer to have to buzz around in the city was a good idea, but we had to deal with carrying the jackets around as I had no way to secure it. Next time I'll bring a cable lock to be able to secure them to the bike. Also, I'll have to make sure that wherever we spend the night there is space to park a car with a trailer attached. Alternatively, I could try to fold the trailer and try to squeeze it in the same parking spot as the car, but I'll have to find a way to secure it to the car (the cable lock maybe?).

As far a tango goes, NY is a much bigger scene then Boston and I've seen lots of people I would've liked to dance with but had no time or opportunity to ask. Looking forward to going again.