Fri: a night out

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I did my best to escape Buenos Aires without doing anything tango-related, but Becky is quite persistent when it comes to such things. There was no way she was getting me to take a dance class, and neither one of us wanted to do a touristy dinner/show, so we observed tango the authentic way: we went to a milonga.

Thanks to Becky's coworker, we had an inside connection to a neighborhood milonga, and made reservations for 11:30. After a pretty amazing nap from 8:30-9:30, we were well rested and prepared for a long night. We were right on time to the milonga, and after paying the cover we were seated down right on the edge of the dance floor. Obviously, we didn't dance, but instead settled down with yet more malbec and observed the process.

Tables are arranged on the outside of the large dance floor, reputed to be one of the smoothest in BA (which is apparently important when it comes to tango). There was some live music scheduled for later in the night, but during our time there it was just a DJ spinning old timey tango music while people danced. Usually a guy and a girl make eye contact from across the floor and meet on the dance floor for 3 songs. Afterwards, the music stops and everyone sits back down before the process starts again. Most of the people there had either come by themselves (or in a same-sex group), or weren't terribly attached to their dates because I never saw the same couple dancing more than once or twice.

I'm sure Becky had a better time than I did, but I wasn't miserable. It was quite the experience.

We left the milonga around 2am and went across the street to a bar for another 45 minutes or so before going home. The bar was fun, definitely a young crowd with lots of dancing and live music. But we were pretty exhausted by that point and didn't stay for very long. Home by 3:15, we crashed immediately and planned on sleeping in a bit on Saturday.

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