BsAs 2009 - Week 1

So it’s been a week since we arrived. Here’s the summary :

- Love the “winter” weather so far, I find it amusing seeing portenos wearing winter clothes and gloves when it’s 50 degrees outside …
- many of the milongas are very weakly attended in the off season. There are exceptions.
- people come out really late. For a milonga ending at 3 or 4 it’s not unusual to see people walking in at 2am.
- people (locals obviously) come and hang out in groups. The women rarely look around so catching their eye from afar is next to impossible (except at traditional milongas), generally you need to get closer and/or verbally ask.
- a cabeceo decline is highly unreliable (except at traditional milongas). A number of time I caught someone’s eye and they looked away. When I eventually got bored and said fuck it, I’ll just ask, they enthusiastically accepted. Now it’s possible they actually watched/seen me dance between the decline and the verbal invitation, but most of these things happened at the end of the night so presumably they’ve seen me dance before the decline. With “the pants” I’m not exactly inconspicuous.
- not speaking Spanish, while not a major issue makes for awkward pauses between songs ;)
- bring with you black pepper if you like it in your food. Most restaurants don’t have it.
- don’t buy anything packaged labeled orange juice and expect to drink orange juice
- I went to a few traditional milongas, I don’t like the vibe. It may also be relevant that at the few traditional milongas I’ve been, there weren’t many people I wanted to dance with.
- Many people equate the “Nuevo” milongas with open embrace acrobatics. The best “acrobats” are also fantastic close embrace dancers.
- I like the teaching style at DNI but they are focused on open embrace. That’s unfortunate. I’ll still take classes there though.
- I really dig the telecommuting work. Nothing like having a 5 foot commute, being able to walk downstairs and have lunch in Palermo-Soho. That 9am EST is 10am here doesn’t hurt either as La Viruta is open very late;). The SipTalk VOIP phone works wonderfully. Being paid dollars and spending pesos is also a pretty good deal. Too bad I have bills going on the State side as well…
- The one tanda at a time rule is observed almost anywhere I’ve been (except at VM on Mondays). I still don’t know how I feel about this one. There are times when I dance with someone and I know a second set would work much better, so at those times the rule is annoying. On to the other hand, it makes one make the most of the songs that you have. No “autopilot dancing” because you don’t like the song/set and you’re just waiting for the next tanda.
- As one gets known, it gets much easier getting dances. Last night at praktika8, a week after my first night out in BsAs, I danced pretty much the entire night, all dances were at least very good, and all of them were with BsAs residents, half locals, half foreigners living there.
- Medialunas are yummy
- If I would have state the biggest difference I felt between women who are trained to dance in BsAs vs some other places, is the way they move their hips when dancing. Portenas and foreigners living here they all roll their hips as they walk, which makes for a much more flavorful dance and removes a lot of the stiffness people trained other places have.