buenos aires, night 3

So it's been 2 days since I last blogged, and my memories of what happened are fading fast.

I head out to a practica at 10PM that's being held by Diego and Gabriel somewhere in Palermo. I don't know their last names, but Emily says they are world famous. This is a problem for me... I don't know the names of all the famous dancers, so my appreciation for this whole scene is, relatively, quite muted. The practica is good-- what was supposed to be 1 hour turned into 3 hours. We did three steps, and it was quite hard. I realize that I currently do not have good enough balance. Emily was very nice and worked very hard to help me on the moves, but in the end, it's just something that I need to practice more.

Around midnight, we are starving, and get choripans (grilled sausage on French baguette with chimichurri sauce) from the place next door. At only AR$5, I wish I ordered more. What seemed ridiculous to me is that the studio where the practica was, sold us sodas for $AR6. Only in Argentina is meat cheaper that beverages.

I also notice that I am beginning to calculate prices like a porteno. For example, I had bought a monedero (debit card for the subway) and put AR$15 (US$4) on it. Then I instantly regretted it, because there was no way I would ride the subway 13 times the rest of the week, and wished that I had saved myself AR$10. The other example is in a practica, I had to purchase a small bottle of water for AR$4. That's just slightly more than US$1. But I was not happy, because one can buy a bottle 3x the size outside for AR$2.70.

After the practica, Emily takes me to PracticaX. It's a nuevo style milonga, even though it's called a practica. That is, people there dance more nuevo style, but the music is still classico. I find it interesting that the cortinas in BA often are nuevo tango, because people here seem to dislike dancing to it. The space is huge, but unlike Canning, well ventilated. To the point where it almost felt cold. The milonga ends at 4AM and we share a cab home. I finally crawl into bed at 5AM.

One final observation. Before I left my trip, everyone who had visited BA kept telling me how much I would love it, how they loved it, etc. Everyone except one person. She warned me that I would feel something was missing. I asked her to elaborate, but she was vague. I'm beginning to feel that to some extent. Not sure how to describe it, but I'll try over the posts over the next few days...