Gricel A Go Go

I glanced at the news headlines and followed a couple of threads in the Amateur Economists blog to try and make sense of Black Monday (as if!), when I saw this, posted last week by one Evelyn Black:

OK, I know Lehman Brothers just tanked, Fannie and Freddie have been seized, and AIG has been taken over by the Fed, but can we put all that aside for just a few minutes and talk about me for a change, please?

I had so much fun, last night. I joined Liliana at Gricel. I danced every single tanda from 10.00 p.m. till 2.30.a.m. - that's a first for me. I wasn't even naked and afileteada from head to foot. Just lucky. Didn't I have a bad back, yesterday? Dancing for four and a half hours on 8 cm stilettos and walking with a 55 litre rucksack all day long are two of my favourite back remedies. A third is aromatherapy, which is a given when you dance up close and personal with a well-groomed varón: subtle notes of leather, cedar, ginger, vetiver, rosemary, moss, musk, frankincense, amber, liqueur, fresh towels... Argentinian men believe in perfume and so do I.

I danced a few tandas with Colin Firth But Sexier and I should think we'll be dancing again. Let the texting begin!

Fear and loathing at El Beso

A friend of mine said he was going to El Beso on Sunday night, so I decided I'd brave it a second time and may be, just may be, it would be better this time round, with the guarantee of at least one man I could dance with. My three flat-mates decided to join me. One of them has just started taking tango classes, another is about to start and the third has never danced tango, but is able to follow a lead in most other dances. On this basis, we booked a table. Meanwhile, the guy whose idea it had been in the first place, decided to go elsewhere.

When we arrived, we were designated a table at the back and had to push quite hard to get a table right next to the dance floor or we might never get a look in. We succeeded in obtaining one. Sadly, sitting at the front doesn't make you a dancer, any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car. We sat there coyly waiting to be invited, but rapidly got bored and started chatting, making ourselves increasingly ineligible for eye contact from los varones*. Most of the men were pushing seventy and most of the women were young and the women far outnumbered the men. The four of us were at least presentable and they didn't even know whether we could dance and still, the señores wouldn't look at us. A most provoking thing. We just couldn't figure it out. I spoke with an American woman sitting at the next table and she said El Beso was notorious for this, like the Dome, in London. The three flatmates left in disgust around 1.30 a.m., but I stayed on another hour or so and finally got in a few tandas. All the same, to go back for another dose of snubbing would be downright perverse, but knowing me and my designer realities, I probably will.

(*varón = male. Pronounced like 'baron,' but with the stress on the second syllable – makes them sound rather dashing, don't you think?)

Ouch!

I've done my back in. I'm wracking my brains for the silver lining: some life-enhancing lesson to be learned. There are several possibilities. None of them is fun:

1. All things pass.
2. Things could be a whole lot worse.
3. There is no pain without gain.
4. This is the hell without which there would be no heaven.
5. There's more to life than tango.
6. I am my will, but I am also my body.
7. Would this have happened if I'd bothered to go to yoga?
8. Lying down is OK.
9. There's a great, big Buenos Aires out there, waiting to be discovered – in flat shoes.
10. The museums are free.
11. The weather's not that good today, anyway.
12. I still haven't finished reading Evita.

Hmmm. I think I'll put the kettle on.

La Viruta

I went home last night after a dance class, had some food, chilled out on my terraza, had a nap then got up and got ready to go out at 3.00 am. Can you imagine doing that in London? I danced from 3.30 till 6 a.m., went to a café in Barrio Norte for some coffee and conversation and finally got to bed at 7.30 a.m. It's a hard life!

On Friday nights, people pour out of Canning, which closes around 3.00 a.m. and head for nearby La Viruta, for a moratorium on beddy-byes, for a few more hours of tango. And not just tango. Today, while I was there, there was also chacarera and rock. I'd been meaning to go to La Viruta for some time. I had come across it in the lyrics of a tango and the venue had also been mentioned to me in the context of dancing salsa.

When I arrived, there was a band playing and I sat alone at the front at a table marked Reserved, though not for me. I immediately recognised the double-bass player as someone I had danced with one evening at Negracha, in London and when I saw there were six musicians in the band, I knew I was not mistaken, as I frequently am. It was none other than the Sexteto Milonguero, one of the most popular bands in Buenos Aires. I went up to say hello, when they stopped playing and no, he didn't recognise me. For a splinter of a second, I saw an omelette on my face. Then I mentioned Negracha and he remembered and was sweet. Phew! A moment later, a couple of guys I had danced with in Cochabamba came up to greet me and I was absorbed into the milonga. I danced with lots of lovely people. The demon dancer was there. We didn't dance. He danced beside us: See what you are missing, girl. I think it's called an entente cordiale. That story is on hold. Faces from other classes. Everybody in high spirits, smiling at familiar faces across the crowd. Moments of intensity. And finally, the Cumparsita. This is how I imagine Judgement Day. It's when you find out you have been in heaven all along. Only you didn't know it. Not unless you ran away to Buenos Aires for a sneak preview. The milonga is heaven on earth.

Four bandoneons

Oh... my... God! It's 8.00 p.m. I've overslept three hours and missed the 6.00 p.m. class at DNI I was so looking forward to. This is the first time since I arrived I've permitted myself a siesta. Yes, it is. My time here is precious and I tend to steer clear of illegit encounters with the duvet. I guess I had an excuse, this time. I took a different collectivo home around 3.30 a.m., this morning, told the driver where I was going and as I started spotting familiar territory, asked, 'Are we there yet?' He said, 'Soon.' A couple of minutes later, I asked him again and he said, 'Oh, er... we've gone way past it. Don't worry. It's about four blocks away.' So I got off and retraced the bus route four blocks, but everything was still quite unfamiliar and it was pretty dark for reading minute print on a diddy map. Fortunately, I found a policeman and it turned out I'd been dropped nineteen, not four blocks away from my road. Just like India, where it is not uncommon to tell tourists sweet little lies, with an enigmatic waggle of the head, rather than alarm them with the truth. Anyway, I had to walk back all the way home. Then, at about 9.00 a.m., Alfonso, the concierge, knocked at my door to request access for the plumber, so I got up after just four hours' sleep. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

But the evening was worth the annoying journey back. I went to the Buenos Aires Club (again!) last night with Paola, an Argentinian girl from my class. There was quality live music: a band with three violins, a double bass played with a bow, a piano and four bandoneons! I didn't close my eyes to lose myself in the power, passion, pathos of the sounds they generated, because utterly enthralled just watching these big, beautiful men wielding their instruments, as if interacting with another human being or god in some dramatic dance, their arms held out as if in supplication, faces lifted to an invisible other, the hands coming back together as if in prayer, their faces studies in intensity. Sometimes, they would lift the instrument and bring it crashing down on their knees and the bandoneons would cry out. Indescribable.

Paola is in her twenties, has one of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen, is tall and willowy and can really dance. I was very puzzled therefore, to be the first to be invited to the dance floor by the jeune premier. I raised an eyebrow and touched my chest. He nodded. I don't like to be cynical, but perhaps he was intimidated by Paola's beauty or perhaps he preferred not to dance with a tall woman. Who knows? The politics of the cabeceo* are still opaque to me. We both got to dance plenty after the first half hour, in any case, and both loved the gig.

(*invitation to dance, by making eye contact)

Club Gricel

I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed my evening at Gricel. I like the venue, the way the tables were set out around the dance floor, the size (about the size of upstairs at Negracha), the lighting (particularly the pink neon Gricel sign above the bar) and the buzz of the place. Here, they dance in the milonguero style and there are plenty of fine Argentinian dancers, many of whom are keen to speak English and do so very well, although I wish they wouldn't as I'd sooner increase my opportunities to speak Spanish. I danced with an Argentinian Colin Firth there, and although I prefer the type in the Eyelit ads (an Argentine brand of masculine underwear), dancing with him was divine and if speaking English was the price I had to pay, then happy was I to do so. I have had a couple of lessons with Oscar (of Youtube fame) at El Beso , who teaches this style as well as one superb lesson with Puchu in a tiny village outside Buenos Aires, after the asado on Spring Day and am beginning to dance more smoothly, to respond to the lead more decoratively. I look forward to going back there.

On the way back from Gricel, I had a disturbing encounter with a radio taxi driver. I was standing at the 118 bus stop in a deserted street around 2.00 a.m., when a taxi drew up. The conversation went something like this:

'Thank you, but I don't need a taxi.'
'Get in, it's dangerous for a woman to be standing alone in a place like this.'
'I'm fine, thanks. I don't have money for a taxi and the bus will be here any minute now.'
'Don't worry about the money. I'll take you. And there is no bus, today.'
'What do you mean?'
'The 118 isn't running today, didn't you know?'
'Yes it is. Thank you for your kindness, but I'm fine. Good bye.'

He wouldn't leave. I ignored him and he still carried on talking and even opened the car door, at which point I remembered the time I was abducted by a man, who stopped to ask for a light, then dragged me into his car and locked me in. He drove from Theobald's Road in central London to somewhere near Arsenal tube station and got out on the passenger side, holding me tightly in front of him, when I swung my heel on the out breath to you know where and bolted. I was nineteen and practised taekwondo, back then. I returned to the scene later, with a policeman and was able to identify the vehicle. A happy ending. Now, I was calculating how I'd deal with this one, when the dear old 118 pulled up and I leaped aboard. The taxi sped away, tyres screaming. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the number on his licence plate.

Grumpy

I've just come home from a dance class, very hungry and very angry. I have had to eat into my day's budget unnecessarily because of the ludicrous lack of coins in this country. I allowed an extra half hour to get to my class, this morning, so that I would have sufficient time to stop off at a bank to exchange a note for a few coins. Some banks will exchange as many as five pesos – enough to take five buses, but many will only do three, so you just have to accept that you may need to kill off two half hour slots in one day, before three o'clock, queuing at a bank. You can be lucky and get to the front of the queue within a matter of minutes, or you can be unlucky, as I was today, and queue for half an hour. At the end of the half hour there were still six people in front of me, so I had to abandon the queue and take a taxi to class. After the lesson, I stopped off at three different places to buy things, just to get some change: a kiosk, a grocer's and an internet cafe. At each of these places, I bought or tried to buy something small: chewing gum, a prepared salad, a phone card. Not one of them was able to give me a single coin in change. Unless I can get some change somehow, after lunch, I won't be able to go to a milonga tonight. I was supposed to be meeting Lili at Club Gricel and that's too long a distance to walk and another cab would just screw up my budget. As for my afternoon class, I'll walk there and back and resign myself to writing off an extra hour.

I talked to the cab driver on the way to class and asked him why there was such a chronic shortage of change. He said it was because the Chinese buy all the coins for one and a half times what they are worth. I asked him how he knew this and he said he had a friend who worked at a bank. It does sound highly improbable, but then so does the coin shortage. He also said that if I wanted coins, I would have to get myself to a bus terminal: it was the one place you could count on getting change. The thing is, I would still need a coin to get me there!

I am eating a solitary meal at home, on my terraza, as I type: a portion of Argentinian shepherd's pie from the local grocery and a readymade salad. I am airing my gripe simultaneously, because if I didn't, I wouldn't have any appetite. The meat, as everybody knows, is excellent. And the cheese is divine. I do find that there is a tendency to over-salt and over-sweeten food, though. I have looked in a couple of supermarkets for freshly squeezed juice and there doesn't seem to be any: only sugary fruit 'nectars'. But I am not complaining, merely observing, for 'We hae meat and we can eat / for it the good Lord be thankéd.'

Feliz Primavera

At my tango school, yesterday, you could either pay a fee or bring a plant. The founder of the school had just returned from an extended tour and to celebrate Spring Day, the practica was interspersed with spectacular performances of show tango by the advanced students. Watching tango is no passive affair. We clap to the rhythm, ululate and call ¡Eso! and ¡Esa! (literally this / that, but equivalent to Yes!) at especially original or complex moves. Then, when it's over, everyone kisses everyone and there are heartfelt hugs. Sometimes, tears. It is intense.

All the teachers were afileteado, yesterday. El Fileteado is a popular, decorative art that is typical of Buenos Aires. It bears some of the characteristics of the painting on English canal boats with the flourishes and curlicues of art nouveau. I asked the man doing the painting to paint me too, to show off at the evening's milonga at the Club Independencia. He painted my throat and shoulder with yellow, orange and purple flowers, dew drops and embellishments. Very pretty! So pretty, I made do with a showerless bath, this morning, so I could enjoy it for one more day.

Today was terrific: a day spent at the country house of one of Lili's friends', with about thirty other guests, all local people. We had been invited to an asado (charcoal roast) dinner and there was a sign on the gate saying Bienvenidos a enfasis en tango.

Lili drove. The speed limit here is 130 km per hour, but nobody respects it. The country house was about an hour's drive away from Recoleta, my barrio (neighbourhood). They told me that many of the workers of Buenos Aires live in this region and it takes them up to two hours to get to work - by bus: it can be chastening to learn about the lives of others.

With us were two ladies, fondly reminiscing about learning English many years ago. They came out with a stream of unmentionable expletives with much enthusiasm and asked me to teach them some more. Then, we arrived and Lily parked outside, so everyone could put on their Spring Day gear: hats and scarves covered in flowers or baby birds, the motifs of spring. There was to be a competition and one woman would be chosen by the men to be Queen of the Spring. Being afileteada, I was covered.

When we got there, I noticed there were loads of women and a handful of men. One of the women said that there were far more women in Argentina than men. Just like England, then. They were a jolly bunch with a robust sense of humour and it was a most convivial lunch. Guests would call Arre, arre, arre! to announce they had a joke to tell and just about everyone had one. Half-way through lunch, our host put on a CD and everyone burst into song. I was delighted when two of them were romantic songs I had learned in Madrid as a girl, from my schoolfriends' mother and I was able to join in lustily with the rest of them: Samba de mi esperanza and Corazon, porque no amas. The host was wonderful. He said, You know my house has no door. It really didn't.

The garden was vast. The flora tends to be grey-green in this area and I noticed wisteria, lemon trees, yucca, palms, a fig tree and a variety of parasite plants including ivy. I met some new plants, native to Argentina: a seibo (the national tree of Argentina, which bears red flowers), some nispero and glisina. Our host's five year old grandson enjoyed tearing around the land on his estate buggy and gave me a bracing round of the perimeter on the back of his vehicle.

In the evening, we went to a nearby village for a tango milonguero lesson with a very handsome tango teacher, who had been one of the guests at lunch. The class was in a tiny café, where we watched the end of a private lesson: two teenage cousins were learning tango as a surprise for their grandmother's birthday. We were just three couples, including the teacher and we had a very good lesson in milonguero posture and style. An extremely elderly lady sat looking on: she was the owner's mother and our teacher danced with her at the end of our lesson. May I have someone like him to dance with me when I'm ninety-three, please.

Cochabamba 444

With a lot of help from the patient, helpful and extraordinarily caring local people, I am managing to make do without taxis. Any hour of the day or night, (including between 2.00 and 5.00 am, although this is not something I would recommend to the fainthearted, as I have been harrassed by the occasional, seedy kerb crawler), I get around on collectivos (buses) and on foot, and in the daytime, the occasional subte (underground). The bus guides are useful, but only up to a point. The trouble is that each bus, whilst having a fixed starting point and destination, often has several different routes in between. This makes it difficult to figure out where to look for bus stops. Because the city is built on a grid system, most roads take only one-way traffic. This makes it impossible to predict which of the two parallel roads flanking the outbound route, the bus will take on the return journey. I get by, asking my way around and risk walking up to a dozen blocks, rather than take a taxi. I am taking a calculated risk, living this way. My Buddhist chanting gives me the courage: worry is slander (a slander of faith.)

Cochabamba 444 last night was pure blissikins. I got to hear of it from a man I met in Plaza Dorrego, last Sunday. The milonga isn't even listed, although the class is. I gave the class a swerve and went down there at 11.00 p.m. to meet up with friends. It is a small venue, where the punters are mainly Argentinians and not many tourists lurk, which is unusual for San Telmo. The décor is local kitsch; the lighting, bright; the vibe, friendly and the drinks, cheap. There was a small band consisting of a cellist, pianist, and guitarist and singer/percussionist, playing the most exquisitely poetic, vibrant interpretations of familiar tangos. Their music was a gift, given freely for love. They played a la gorra. Dancing, live music, good company, sipping mate, drinking wine... Oh how I love being here!

Phones, pivots and pooches

Last night, at the Buenos Aires club (again!) my phone kept cutting out. I was supposed to be meeting someone and somehow I managed to miss a key text of his, the one in which he mentioned where he was going. I had sent him a text message suggesting we meet at the venue I had chosen and presumed he'd be there. Both our venues had an “upstairs with live music” and we both spent time searching our respective “upstairs” for each other, sending 'Where are you?' texts, in vain. But it didn't matter, because the people are friendly and even though I have been here for under two weeks, I find I inevitably recognise at least one person from a previous venue. The Republic of Tango, although it spans the planet, is a small world. I met a man and a woman, on separate occasions last night, each of whom mentioned close friends in London, both of whom I have danced with.


Today I went to a technique class for women at Tango Brujo. The first part of the class was about about pushing off and landing securely, when taking a step. The second part was about finessing the musculature of the lower hips and inner thighs for pivoting. A group of us (three Anne's, a Rosa , a Donna and I) went to a café to wind down afterwards and we all agreed that it was a very worthwhile lesson and that this delving into minute detail was exactly why we had come here to learn. I am discovering that Buenos Aires is full people for whom tango is a religion, who have made this pilgrimage, just as the sick visit Lourdes, with the difference that there is no cure: tango is a fatal obsession. I thought, coming here for six months, I was coming here for a really long time, until I realised that people who are here for one year are commonplace. I have met people who have been here for two and three years, just for tango. They are too busy dancing to work. They would sooner starve and dance, so that's what they do. I can't imagine how I'm going to feel when it's time to tear myself away from Buenos Aires – it doesn't bear thinking about.


I live in Recoleta, (the Kensington of Buenos Aires), where everybody and their dog has a dog. One of the most endearing and typically Porteňo sights in the city streets is the dogwalker. Any London child visiting Buenos Aires would give their Gameboys to live here just to see this on a regular basis. There are of course people who walk their own dog(s), but it seems a great many turn their pooches over to the professional dogwalker. Typically, they are young people in sportswear, but sometimes, they look like retired army. So far, I have seen them walk, jog and (my favourite) cycle with with their packs, which can be as large as a twenty, (in which case, of course, they are working in two's.) The dogs come in all shapes and sizes, but what they all have in common is they are always impeccably well-behaved. I have yet to witness a dogfight, display of humping or dog turd on the pavement.

Stock-taking

I am taking stock of the new things I've learned in my first week here.

Firstly, I have discovered how to warm the body up properly for tango. Most of the warm-ups in the London classes I've been to, do not limber up the body for all the tortions involved in tango. The warm up here really and truly addresses those tango needs.

Secondly, I am beginning to be serious about the three most important things in tango: technique, technique, technique. I am increasing my awareness of the individual functions of my toes, heels, knees and hips in taking a step, forwards, backwards and sideways. Let me give you an example of what I've learned about taking an elegant step forwards:

Flex the weight-bearing leg, drop the hip of the stepping leg, then lift the knee, begin to trace forward with the toe but continue the projection leading with the heel, the toes flexed back – six steps before even beginning to shift the body weight through the middle to the front, (a stage during which both knees are flexed,) lowering the rest of the forward foot to the ground incrementally, whilst straightening the back leg.

Hips, knees and heels are new friends and I am looking forward to getting to know them better. I don't think I was even aware of the need to drop the hip in taking a step backwards, nor that there is a stage during the step back during which both knees are flexed. Nor of the importance of dropping the hip in performing a giro, to give it stability. I was aware of the cork screw nature of a pivot, but I never had anyone actually hold onto my rib cage and open it outwards, so that I could feel the difference between disassociating the different parts of my torso and moving it as a block. There were, of course, classes in London, where there was a lot of one-to-one input, but there does seem to be more hands-on teaching in BsAs and both men and women get to dance in the teacher's embrace with regular frequency, which is extremely enabling.

Thirdly, I have learned some exciting, new, tango flummery, but that will serve me only when I am dancing with partners who are able to lead these moves.

However, if I am to make the most of my time here, I shall have to do regular practise by myself, just like anyone learning anything, anywhere.

Plaza Dorrego

'Woke up early this morning thinking: I am eye. Eye am I. Reality exists in the eye, in the I of the beholder. What happened yesterday? Rather depends on which eye / I is looking. The glad eye / I, the miserable eye / I , the angry eye / I ... Oh, aye.

I went to Plaza Dorrego to meet up with a friend and the demon dancer for an open air Sunday evening milonga, which kicks off around 7.00 pm, once all the market traders have cleared the square of their wares and stalls. I had to negotiate my way through a samba batteria, over a cobbled street, to get to the square on time for my rendez-vous. By the time the procession reached the square, the milonga was in full swing and for some fifteen minutes, there was the feverish pounding of drums over the howl of the bandoneon, all rather surreal under the full moon.

There was the delight of live music for part of the evening and yesterday, at any rate , there was an exuberant performance of Peruvian folkloric dance, all a la gorra (with a hat for donations) and a speech, which I was not able to follow entirely, but was a political protest against the corruption of the government. There was a steady stream of heckling from one old borracho (boozer), to the delight of some and the annoyance of others. Eye / I.

They put down some kind of lino floor to dance on, at one end of the square, so it is possible to wear your Comme il faut's, if you can be bothered, though there is a grave risk of catching your stiletto on the edges, when you get crowded off the floor. I wore mine to start off with, then put my trainers back on to keep my feet warm. We had coffee to warm up our insides, but sitting around was not a viable option as it was bitterly cold. I danced with my trainers, coat and cap on, for some of the time, but found that the trainers made me clumsy, the coat made my body less sensitive to the lead and the cap poked my partners in the eye. Fortunately, there was a dome tent set up at one end of the milonga for dancers' bags and coats.

Dancing with my friend is normally a huge pleasure, but his heart didn't seem to be in it, yesterday and he sauntered off after a few dances and appeared in the distance, from time to time, like Banquo's ghost, a forbidding presence, I felt, best left to his own devices. Eye / I.

The demon dancer appeared an hour later than he'd said, but neither of us mentioned this. If we had, it would have become a reality and we would have had to deal with it. He claimed me for a savage tanda and once again, I luxuriated in being swung around the floor in his vivacious embrace, played like a saxophone, a double base, an electric guitar. Lili's teacher, a woman in her sixties, does not think the demon dances well, that his embrace is too intense, but surely the test of quality is how he makes the woman feel? Eye / I.

I enjoyed watching two little girls, the children of tourists, dancing their idea of tango in the midst of the milonga and an elderly gentleman leading his grand daughter around the floor, a most accomplished couple. I danced with another few dancers, including an American from the dance school, an Argentino from last night's milonga and a very charming man, whose Croatian girlfriend I met, who recommended the Cochabamba milonga on Thursday nights.

I considered going on to another venue, but thought better of it, so as to be in a fit state to do a good day's dancing on Monday at the dance school.

Buenos Aires Club

'Went to the Buenos Aires Club last night, some time after midnight. I didn't get in till five a.m. and don't feel the least bit tired. Funny the way the body adjusts easily, so long as there's a good enough incentive. I'm reminded of the story someone once told me about having a raging toothache, which disappeared the instant he was informed he was being released from prison. I went there to dance, of course, but also specifically to dance with the demon dancer of the night before. Of course I did.

I felt slightly intimidated at the thought of going out alone at that hour, so I took a taxi, but this can't go on for much longer or I shall run out of funds. A taxi costs as much as eating out. I shall just have to get the hang of the routes of the various local collectivos, (buses.) The bus guidebooks are easy to use, so long as you have plenty of time to trace the route on a map, before setting out. The trouble is, I'm always in a hurry. The other reason it can be hard taking a collectivo is that they only accept coins and there is a critical shortage of coins in Argentina. I talked to a lady at a kiosk about this and she said the reason for this is that it costs more to mint a coin than the coin is worth. I still don't get it. Why then do the buses insist on accepting only coins, when there aren't sufficient? I shall have to get to the bottom of this.

Anyway... the Buenos Aires Club is a chilled out, boho joint, where they have live music and if you're lucky, a cabaret, thrown in with the milonga. I met a Frenchman who had given up his life, house, car and all other belongings to move to Buenos Aires just for tango. I also met up with a couple of guys I'd danced with in other milongas as well as meeting a few new faces. I danced all evening and had a satisfying number of tandas (sets of dances) with the demon dancer. It was easy, it was fun. I've been here just over a week and already I feel at home in this city.

At around three thirty, the dream dancer approached me with his flashing eyes and said that he was off and would I like to leave too. We left.

Opportunity is confronting. Fear is not 'real,' yet it feels more real than reality. Expectation is informed by habit. Therefore very likely misinformed. I know this. And yet, I feel compelled to deny possibility, to stay with what I know, to be safe inside the box, inside my comfort zone. Like many people I know, I don't tend to get close to someone just because I can. I need to construct a conventional context, to invent a story, to safeguard and to justify. Tango is a such a context, and an exquisite one. Connecting with another in beauty is the pleasure of tango. But outside of such a context, ooooh, I don't know. Best weave a circle round him thrice.*

(Kubla Khan, by S. T. Coleridge)

Canning

Wow! It's nearly 4 a.m. and Maria-Amelia and I have just returned from Canning and there's absolutely no chance of me getting any sleep. I didn't stop dancing all evening. And I danced with an unnecessarily thrilling dancer, probably the best dancer I've ever danced with, tonight. Not once, but five times – that's about twenty dances. Lili saw me dancing with him and said the Spanish equivalent of “I've been watching that man with my tongue hanging out for years and he's never asked me to dance, you jammy bitch!” How can I explain what it was like? He didn't dance with me, he danced me, possessed me, invaded me and played me like a musical instrument, with a virtuosity and a tenderness and a virility bordering on brutality. I felt like a rag doll in his arms and my legs flew of their own accord into perfect voleos and ganchos. At least they felt perfect. I wasn't watching. A big, beautiful Argentino and yes, he had the obligatory ponytail. What's more, he spoke English well and made good conversation. He said where he'd be tomorrow and gave me his contact details. Huh! He was too good to be true and quite frankly, I don't care if I never dance with him again, though it would be nice. I could become possessed, the woman wailing for her demon-lover*. If I were to get used to him, other guys would only disappoint. All the same, I can't sleep.

(* Kubla Khan, S.T. Coleridge)

Tango Brujo

Todo is going well. Last month at Negracha, I got talking to an Italian girl and discovered we were going to be in BsAs at the same time, so we arranged to meet up. Francesca is lucky enough to be here as part of her PhD project, interviewing economists, sociologists and politicians. She suggested we meet today at another tango school: Tango Brujo (Tango Wizard, in case you don't speak Spanish.) It was a beautiful studio, spacious and serene, with dark wooden floors, burgundy drapes and cushions, but no mirrors. (I like mirrors, me.)

The class was superb. The school is quite a long way from where I live. I had to take a taxi to get there, but I'm still going back for more, next week. There were just ten students in the intermediate class. The teachers were José and Natalia and they really looked after us. The focus was on the technique of colgadas, specifically changing direction with a colgada turn. I've not done these before and they took some mastering, but by the end of the lesson, I was doing them well. What am I going to do when I get back to London? Please, guys, come over and learn how to lead these moves, or us chicas will end up forgetting everything we've learned.

Francesca and I leched at the shoes downstairs on our way to have some lunch: we had a very tasty spinach and pumpkin tart and I had my first Quilmes, a very morish Argentinian beer: crisp, dry and very hoppy. Naaaice!

In the evening, I joined Lili and friends for a practica at the Western Hotel. I went early and joined the beginners class - as a leader. I learned how to lead the repentida, which is a kind of ocho cortado. The women were very patient. Predictably, people had difficulties pronouncing my name. The teacher, Carlos, kept calling me Sasín and Sasí, which reminded me of Zazie as in Zazie dans le Métro, a novel written in the sixties by Raymond Queneau (a must, if you haven't already read it.) Being a newbie in Beunos Aires, I feel a bit like the eleven-year old, wandering around Paris. I might just adopt her name. Zazie danse le tango. Hmmm.

The real highlight of the evening, however, was the parilla*, where over a dozen of us went to dine around eleven pm. (* A restaurant specialising in charcoal-grilled meat – the Hispanic equivalent of the Tandoori.) I ordered lomo de bife (loin of beef), because I'm worth it. And because I never permit myself to pay for one in a London restaurant. The steak (big as my face, it was), with salad and wine came to seven quid, including the tip. The company was great. Lili's friends were very interesting. Near me, there sat an architect, a lawyer, a university lecturer and Lili, who is a psychologist. I conversed in Spanish all evening and I've been invited to a parilla with tango outside Buenos Aires on the first day of spring.

DNI: This is what I came for

My first day at DNI tango school was everything I had hoped it would be and more. It has completely soothed away the sting of the milonga at El Beso. In fact, quite a few of the dancers from El Beso were in the classes (I did three, today, but no milonga) and I danced with everyone. The teachers were god-like in form and movement. Also, extremely nurturing. Sometimes, they even kiss you when you get it right. Yes, they do. The standard of dancing and teaching is, over all, much higher here than in London and I experienced none of the snobbery I have experienced in classes in London. Thanks to Danny Israel, whose book about tango is soon to come out, as well as my friend Flor, for telling me about this incredible place.

El Beso: Merry Christmas from the very smug

My second milonga, I went to El Beso with my Brazilian flatmate, who has been dancing tango for fifteen years. Headstrong from the success of my first milonga, it didn't occur to me that this one would be any different. In fact I even sent an email to a friend, who is about to come out here, saying something like: “I must have danced with about fifteen men... they say the Argentines won't dance with tourists, but that's just a load of old hooey.”

Once, a long time ago, in Camden Lock, I found a bunch of Christmas cards that said, “Merry Christmas from the very smug”. They amused me and I thought they expressed perfectly the way I felt about things, that year. That was just before the most painful point in my life. I have to say that Sunday night at El Beso was the most excruciating milonga ever and I sure as hell wish I hadn't tempted fate, sending that email. Let me tell you what it was like: we were shown to seats furthest back from the dance floor. No one made eye contact with us for the first hour. Nobody had seen us dance, which in my case, would have made little difference, but in my flatmate's case, would surely have made some: she's a good dancer. I made an internal vow that if someone asked her to dance, I would go out of my way to do something good the following day. At last, someone made eye contact with her and she rose to meet him on the dance floor. When she sat down, her partner asked me to dance. At El Beso, (the Kiss) I loved that when people met to dance on the floor, they first exchanged a kiss, even with strangers. Other than him, I had one other person ask me to dance. One. That's a total of two partners all evening. We left early, around one a.m.

The first few days

I spent the first night at Lili's. We had lunch the next day with quite the most delicious wine. After that, it took me half a day to move in. Then, in the evening, I joined Liliana and her friends at an Open Mic night at Bar Canto Afiche, where we were in a room full of artistes. We were the only four people who didn't perform. The compère came round to talk to everyone, including me and to my astonishment, at the start of the evening, she made a special introductory speech about me to the audience. The food tasted home-made, the wine was good, the music was Bolero and Tango and they sang with such emotion, such passion, I fell even more deeply in love with Argentina, if that is possible. Oh yes, and one of the singers announced that his song was about me. Flattery works, every time.

On Sunday, I did my first supermarket shop and then went to San Telmo with Maria Amelia, my flatmate. We ambled around the markets, ate pizza (Argentinian pizza is superb: better than Italian or even American) and pressed our noses to all the antique shop windows. I couldn't stop wondering how I could bring some of those gorgeous, antique chandeliers back home with me. If my sister were here (and I could get her to agree), I'm sure she'd have found a way. Maria Amelia and I had hoped to go to the outdoor milonga at Plaza Dorrego, but it didn't appear to be happening, so we went to a charming cabaret café called El Balcon by the plaza, for a tango show. I loved it. The audience was invited to dance on the stage with the performers: I'd like to do that one day, but in the mean time I'll make do with watching American tourists have fun making fools of themselves.

This morning, I went to the fridge to find the stuff I had bought for breakfast and it was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't understand what could have happened to my groceries and everyone was out. Then on my way out, I noticed the dining table had been beautifully laid for breakfast with all my things arranged appetisingly on plates, and a flask of boiling water prepared for my coffee. How thoughtful is that! As no one was about, I took it up on a tray to the sun terrace and had my first breakfast at home exactly the way I think breakfast should be – serene, outside, under a clear, blue sky, surrounded by plants. I think I'll do this every day.

Day One

My first day in Buenos Aires was perfect from start to finish. As we landed, the whole plane burst into applause. I found that strangely touching. We arrived on time; it took a couple of minutes to get through Immigration; my suitcases were on the conveyor belt within ten, intact; Aldo Escobar, taxi driver extraordinaire, was there to greet me and to my amazement kissed me on both cheeks. They don't do that in England, taxi drivers, do they? He kept calling me Nathnaynay and I let him. He'd heard I was here for tango, so he talked about La Boca and San Telmo, advised me to go to the Feria de Mataderos on Sundays, reckoned I should go to the area surrounding Abasto to buy tango things. He showed me the road separating Greater Buenos Aires from the capital, he pointed out a cable factory and I found out that San Casetano is the patron saint of work. I might just download a picture of him for the wall paper on my desktop.

Lili was waiting for me in her bijou flat in Palermo Hollywood. I'd never met her before - she is the friend of a friend of a friend – and yet, it was just like meeting an old school friend. Her spare room is an elegant shoe box, so I said to her that it would make more sense to find somewhere to live on day one itself. She made me lunch and spent most of the day poring over the websites of letting agents with me and making calls on my behalf. We found something pretty soon and went to see it later on, but not before seeing her Podiatrist, a lovely guy, who also kissed me on both cheeks. You don't get that on Camden's Podiatry service – they asked me to fill out a questionnaire, just before I left, and I didn't think to mention that their Podiatrists were failing to kiss me.

My new home is a penthouse flat with a large sun terrace, on the 9th floor in salubrious Recoleta, the Kensington of Buenos Aires. When we went to check it out, I was very impressed with the posh entrance and the rather attractive concierge, but when I entered the crimson living room, with it's elegant drapes, the kind you see in stately homes, I knew I had landed on my feet. I chose the room with the better shower, rather than the one with the jacuzzi. I can always be friends with my flatmates and what's to stop us sharing? The landlady lives in and is a total sweetheart. I emerged from my shower the following day to find a note slipped under my door, saying “Breakfast is free – please join me.” She has expressed an interest in showing me round and she and I are going to go out together and see the sights. She, my Brazilian flatmate and I speak to each other in Spanish, as it is the language we have in common. If anyone knows anyone who is coming out to Buenos Aires and needs somewhere to live, there are about to be two spare rooms here.

Lili and I went out to dinner and I had my first succulent Argentinian steak. Pure blissikins! We then went on to a dance class and milonga at Canning, Palermo. Canning is very reserved, very bourgeois and only traditional tangos are played and the milonguero style is the order of the day. Lili thought my top was a bit risqué, but I wore it anyway. She introduced me to all her friends and she had many. Some fifteen men asked me to dance. I was in tango heaven.

Reach for the duvet

[Yes, this is two days old.]
I am writing this as I sit on the 747 to Buenos Aires. This is what it can be like rocking on a cocktail of anxiety and euphoria, forty-eight hours before making a dream come true. An endless loop of reaching for the sky and reaching for the duvet. I booked the ticket a month ago, so I've had plenty of time to prepare my head and to paper pack my non-existent bags. I imagined the real packing wouldn't need to be done until the eve of travel, so left buying them till a few days ago, when I spotted a set of matching luggage for just £40 at Poundstretcher, (the Harvey Nicks of the incorrigibly thrifty.) I didn't notice the cunningly-worded small print on the seductive three year guarantee till I got home, but hell, at times you've just got to suffer what there is to suffer. I invited my sister over to help me pack as she is not terminally whimsical. Naturally she stood there tutting and all vainly sighing as I protested, “Yes, I do need to pack the hole-punch – I couldn't possibly live without one, nor without double-sided sticky tape, nor Columbian coffee.” I managed not only to use up the extraordinarily generous 46 Kg allowance for checked-in baggage, but also to go over by one Kg on each bag.

Later that evening, I had an instinct to double-check the baggage allowance. What if I had misread the information and the 46 Kg applied only to Business Class and I hadn't noticed? If I arrived on the day at the Alitalia check-in desk to find the allowance was in fact 20 Kg, I'd have rather a generous portion of egg on my face. We checked the Alitalia website and guess what? The allowance was 20 Kg for all economy flights other than flights to the US and Canada. But what about my sister's packing? It's an art form! Mortified, I phoned the Alitalia contact number to raise my concerns with a rep, who answered soothingly, “Don't-a worry. Is not a problem-a. For Buenos Aires, two bags-a 23 kilos is fine-a.” I could have kissed her. Still, the fact remained that I was still overweight and stubbornly refusing to jettison a single item. I think I hoped the check-in staff would turn a blind eye to the extra weight or accept a sob story about dodgy weighing scales and false readings. There was also the worry that the stitching on my budget luggage might not be able to cope with all my crucially important belongings straining to get out. I could always have the bags swathed in polythene. John Burningham's “Would you rather...?” came to mind. If they did turn a blind eye, there was the prospect risking a Tracy Emin - over the apron of Ezeiza airport. If, on the other hand, I got them wrapped, I would have no choice but to pay for excess baggage because it would then be too late to shovel the sh** into a backpack, which my girls could then take home. Such are the preoccupations of my vacant mind. It was all right in the end. The bags went through and nothing burst. But we did have to turn back on the way to board the Piccadilly line at King's Cross, when I suddenly realised I'd left my mobile at home, on the chest of drawers. Then at Heathrow, as I headed for Gate 28, a phone went off in my hand bag, a phone with an unfamiliar ring tone. Isn't life eventful? Clearly one of my daughters had put it there and forgotten to retrieve it. Anyway, I managed to sprint back to Security, return the phone and catch my plane.

Later: I'm back. We're just flying over Casablanca, having eaten a very acceptable dinner. “Pasta o carne?” I chose carne. Although it was more well-done than I'd have chosen, it was beautifully tender. I think it's a miracle how they manage to feed the five hundred all at the same time to the standard they do and have no time for sybaritic snobs who pooh-pooh airline nosh.

With so much trivia to occupy me, I didn't really get to use the last few days to reflect on my life to date or to set any goals. I feel an existential crisis looming, so I think I'll just reach for the duvet, or rather, the Alitalia stripey, blue rug, even if the colour doesn't really suit me. Goodnight!
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