PLACE: Argentina

HELLO!

I will be lazy this time round. What I mean to say is that I spent the whole month of November in Argentina plus a week each of October and December...so that my monthly summery on www.dancingnomad.blogspot is essentially the same as my Argentina travel blog post. And therefore I used the same text for both posts.
Please forgive me but I got a good excuse: I still have to wrap all my Christmas presents and there are plenty!!! ;-)

ARGENTINA....

...Lets see….I left Berlin on October 25th in the morning and returned on December 5th in the evening. That certainly sounds like a long vacation but it certainly did not feel like it for me! The weeks flew by and saw me change my somewhat prejudice view about Argentines.

“What?” is what you might have thought now, about the word ‘prejudice’ but yeah, to be completely honest I had been a bit wary about what to expect in regards to the people. You know of course about the cliché of Argentines to be an arrogant folk and I had somewhat of an aftertaste of the world cup left in the back of my mind (even though the German soccer team had sent them home early enough). But I had scolded myself already for being a little quick with my opinion…not even having been there yet myself.



So, on the plane to Argentina I was feeling impatient to get there and see for myself. AND? Once I got there, I was very pleasantly surprised. Pheewwww, this hospitality is incredible! Just unbelievable! Without exaggeration I have to state here that this hospitality has been manifested in solid facts with a weight of 4 kilo. They are located on my hips, my ass and my thighs! But well, what else to expect when one goes round to visit friends every few days and an ‘Asado’ is being done in the honor of the special occasion or simply because it happens to be the weekend. A proper Asado (arg. home style barbeque) is usually calculated with following quantities per person:

1 kilo of meat/ribs/innards,

½ kilo of sausages (chorizos, morcillas),

1 - 2 liter of wine,

1-2 liter of beer,

lots of white bread rolls,

a handful of salad and

plenty of talk plus a

swish of music.

Adding the visits to the ‘Parilladas’ (arg. restaurant style barbeque's) I counted at least 2 barbeque's as described above per week!



Besides the food there is of course the people themselves. Actually I had rather a hard time to find the ‘cliché’ Argentines. Almost all people whom I met where so totally friendly and welcoming, interested and warm, full of questions and eagerness to learn about me and my life; sometimes I felt a little burned out and my head started to strike. Especially at these late night happenings my language switch sometimes went off and I wasn’t able to decipher any language anymore. No Spanish, nor English let alone German…it just all went down the drain. And sometimes I would sit there and simply hear the conversation suddenly as if you are listening to a song in a completely foreign language: you are just enjoying the melody and the sound of it but wont know of the contents or meaning of the words. Though in hindsight I believe to be able to blame the food coma and the excess of new impressions. Usually I would have been flushed with observations and impressions all day long and of course there is a moment where the brain gets overwhelmed and shuts a few gears lower to process all that. And of course being the only foreigner in maybe 2 dozens Argentines they would simply talk at their usual speed with their local variations of pronunciation and intonation. Not an easy feat even when fresh and wide awake I’d say.



What else? Should I tell you about my experiences with the Tango world in Buenos Aires? Well, of course I felt compelled to check it out, however sort of stumbled into it rather then having had it prepared. My plan was to improvise and ask around for a happening place and simply watch the dancers and trying to get onto the dance floor, you know the learning-by-doing-approach!

I had gotten a recommendation to go to a large ‘Confiteria’ (café house) at the junction of Boedo Avenue and San Juan Avenue. The guy could not remember the name of the place but said we would not miss it and we would find out more infos there. So I went there and the place turned out to be a long time established venue, well known and with regular live acts and shows.
Not advertised by any of the waiters, rather sort of hidden on the Mezzanine balustrade I discovered even a teacher giving classes (locals as well as foreigners) and turned out to be awesome. With excellent teaching skills and being inspiring dancer himself he convinced without saying a word and I instantly took the class and returned for more. The name of the place: “Homero Manzi”, the name of the teacher: “Oscar Gauna”!



There in the small class, with only 5 or 6 people, I met a few local Ladies. One of them was so sweet. Her name is Ema and we got on so well that she took us along to a proper Milonga (Tango party). We went to the “Confiteria La Ideal” and it was there where I did my first proper Tango dancing on a public dance floor. Hihihi, so funny! You should have seen me. I felt so crude and raw compared with some of the other dancers with movements so polished. I felt unsure of myself and unknowledgeable about the etiquette of the Tango world. However I just went along and I learned tons and had tons of fun too. I was dancing almost non-stop for nearly 2 hours as I got invited to dance quite a bit. Very encouraging! :-)

After that I took a few more classes (5 in total) and went to a few more Milongas (4 in total). Tango is not out of fashion, nor dead in Argentina. I realized that nowadays Buenos Aires has a lot of local dancers, mostly a bit older but with quite a lot of fresh blood too however some are invisible to the visitors from out-of-town, as they prefer to frequent venues where no foreigners mix up the dance floor. And there are many foreign dancers. Most of which are advanced in their dance level and hum into Buenos Aires (all year round and for several month at a time) like it is their Tango Mecca. Generally speaking at most of the Milongas they had a fair mix of locals and visitors. The visitors being often professional dancers from all over the world such as Australia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway etc etc. A couple of times the Milonguero expected me to be a sound Milonguera because apparently BERLIN has one of the best (?) Tango Argentino scenes worldwide. I didn’t really know and of course disappointed with my I-took-only-5-Tango-classes-but-I-dance-a-bit-salsa-and-can-follow-if-you-let-me-try approach.



Besides Buenos Aires, Tango & Milongas, Asados & Parilladas and family visits - what else? Well, I got to see some of the provinces & cities north of Buenos Aires (Salta, Puerto Iguazu & Rosario) and the IGUAZU WATERFALLS.

Oh my dear! What impressive spectacle are these waterfalls! I spent 2 days in awe of them and made sure to see them from all angles and approaches possible. I took about 500 photos and stood silently for whole minutes, absorbing the images and sounds and the mist! Totally impressive and amazing! The power of water makes you feel humble and small and unimportant!



Well, I could write on and on about many many details and observations but I will come to a close now. If you wanna know more: write me or call me or visit me! I will be in December and January in BERLIN and there is plenty of ‘mate cocido’ at my home to share with you!



Take care my dear friends and have a safe and happy New Year. Good health and peace of mind, because that will do you good!



Yours,



Stef

the dancing nomad

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