Tango

Last night we decided to go see a tango show, and based on a fellow traveler´s recommendation, Ron, Ryan, Tara and I grabbed a cab across town to what turned out to be an amazing hole in the wall. When the cabbie dropped us off, we were confused. The address we had looked like a dark office building. We knocked on the door, a guy let us into a dingy lobby, and then pointed towards a wide, dark stairway. Upstairs was a huge open room that looked like a warehouse of some sort - with amazing artwork everywhere! The room was dark, surrounded by tables, with kind of a red-tinged lighting. There were tango lessons in progress in the center of the room. Since it was only about 11;00, we decided to grab dinner and wait for the action to start. We had an antipasto plate, 4 various dishes, 2 bottles of malbec (argentinean wine), and a dessert. We shared all of this for about $30 US. The place was vegetarian, and the food was awesome.

While we were waiting on our food, the manager came over to chat and offer to buy us a drink. He was very friendly, and he gave us some postcards of various artwork. By the time we were finishing dinner around 12;30, the show was ready to start. I can´t say I´ve ever seen anything like it - I have got to post some pictures! They had been slowly setting the stage with a small wooden table, medical instruments, a chair, and a bowl of water on the floor for several minutes. The dancers then began this elaborate, impressionistic dance/skit. The man sat in the chair, the girl pretended to give him oxygen, and then she dropped to the floor and began thrusting her head into the bowl of water and then throwing it up in the air. They danced, and it was rather like what I would imagine watching people do *it* would be like. It was so intimate that you felt you should look away. The whole performance only lasted a couple of minutes - then there was some down time, then another performance. We were so tired that we didn´t stay for more than a couple - they were having about 20 minutes of open dance in between each performance. I wanted to stay though, because the place was just starting to get crowded! They take things rather slowly around here...

Anyway, it was an enchanting place. Today, we managed to FINALLY find a place to change money. We asked several people, walked the same block about 4 times, and finally were led there by a sweet elderly lady. She literally held my hand. I also made a phone call and reserved us a room - in Spanish! It was so easy that I thought I might have missed something, so I called back to make sure that I actually had a room!

Anyway, I have some more reservations to make and a boyfriend to drag out of bed. He´s been sleeping non-stop ;)