Tango

So Argentina is famosa for its tango scene, and my new apartment mate (who's like 50 something but she's not a host mom just an apartment mate..) is really into the whole tango scene so she took me to one of the milongas two weeks ago (a milonga is a dance studio/club where you take classes and then practice dancing, with hundreds of people). Ever since then, I have been going to the milonga in Palermo Viejo (called La Viruta) every Wed. from 8pm until whenever, usually midnight or whatnot. It starts with las clases de rock, which is just swing dance, and then at 9:30pm (claims the schedule but that really means 10pm here in Argentina), you could the slow, smooth rhythm of tango.

Tango is fun and surprisingly not impossible. It actually doesn't require me to think that much because I just follow whatever the guy is doing and once you get the basic steps, it's just all variations from then on. I like La Viruta because the people here are friendly, the drinks there are cheap, and there is this crazy, loud and abruptly shouting head-instructor who's just funny to watch and speaks incomprehensible Spanish. And strange, random things always happen when I go there. Like for example, the first time I went there, I was able to get my friends and me some nice table up front by smiling a lot and speaking English to the waiter (the poor thing was so confused on what I wanted ...) It was all swell until the instructors started doing a show for the students, and the crazy, loud and abruptly shouting head-instructor out of the blues just came up to me and sat on my lap. I screamed because he's like heavy as heck and without saying sorry or anything, he just got up and left. And then today, I went there myself because all my friends bailed due to sickness (yeah right) and I was seating at a table by myself during break time. Then this mid-aged man just came over to my table, asked for the menu, said that he couldn't read it because the prints were too small, which I believed him, and then read the whole menu to him. THEN his wife/girlfriend came over and put her arms over me - I am just assuming she's very friendly. Upon hearing from her husband/boyfriend that I read the menu to him, she was delighted and asked me to read it to her as well. So she pulled me into her embrace as I was struggling with pronounciation, corrected my pronunciation as we went, and was so happy with the fact that I got through the menu. She thought it was especially cute when I told her the prices as well. And yes, she hugged me the entire time. And no, I had no idea who they were.