One of my musical discoveries in BA: Narcotango2 (and 1)
- Narcotango - danced to...
- And one more ...
Other e-tango CD's I bought were: Terminal Tango, Astor Piazzolla Remixed, Ultratango - trash noche. And I just had to get a chacarera CD, too - La Chacarerata Santiagueña - Bailando en la salsamanca.
First of all a video with a tango performance by Analia and Marcelo, recorded at Salón Canning, February 16th 2007.
And here is a little selection of pictures, taken by Diana and myself during my stay in Buenos Aires.
Too hot in Buenos Aires? Take a look at this!
Since it was difficult to upload videos while being in Cuba, here a video special for you:
Sick driving in Cuba - a 720 on the Cuban highway
Cigars rolled the farmer way - not as classy as the factory results, but just as tasty!
Conga crash course in Havana - now you got the chance to learn it, too! Just do it.
Cuban Salsa in our favourite bar 'Monserate' in Havana, Cuba!
I also will post pictures of the whole trip here (but it takes a little time - so check it out sometime).
It's tuesday, february 20th, Trondheim airport, 22.45 h. Two Brazillians and I step down the stairs of the noisy plane. The wind is blowing like hell, small hills of frozen snow are building a small border around the run-way. It's MINUS 10 degrees Celcius or worse.
It's roughly a 100 meters to the terminal building. At first, we can hardly breath in the cold air. We shiver in our thin sorry clothes. We are not sure weather we should cry or laugh. A puta madre slips out, we shake our heads, look at each other and laugh...
Nostalgia is the only thing left - after an amazing trip to crazy Cuba and marvellous Buenos Aires. Nostalgia... filmed by Diana (silent movie!).
This blog has reached it's end - and purpose. Pictures of the trip will be posted soon under this " PHOTO LINK here. Enjoy!
1. Buenos Aires was worth it - both in terms of mileage and pesos!
2. Buenos Aires has a boomerang effect on me - I will come back - for a longer period of time. Oh yes, my boss will love it!
3. BA has just sooo much to offer - the architecture, the food, the music and life-style etc. etc. etc. Just a pity I only had 2 weeks there. Next time I'll be a better tourist, picture-taker, and tanguero (hopefully).
4. But then again, Buenos Aires has draw-backs as well: the summer heat, the beautiful women, the amazing shops with a good price-value relation, the food, the crazy night life and the relaxing massages! How can I ever be happy again - whenever I am not there!??
5. Tango-wise, I might be more confused than ever - with a bus load full of homework to do. Still, BA taught me the longing after jugendstil, a good steak and la dulce vida - and I believe some more tango skills will emerge during future visits :-)
6. BA is a melting pot - and it literally melted my brain in terms of languages. Speaking up to 4 different languages a day, made my simple-structured brain cook. It'll take me weeks to get my Norwegian properly on track again! As for the Spanish (or Castilliano, as the porteños call it), I really wished I had studied a bit Italian before I got there. But I guess, I got the major points in conversations with taxistas, vendors, tango teachers and waiters anyway...
7. Buenos Aires is a big city - and without the help of my jugendstil-addicts L&&L the tango-start in BA would have been terribly difficult (actually without them I might never have come to continue to get tango-ed in the first place, not to mention a trip to BA). Muchissimo gracias for the incredible BA-Tango-recipe, amigos!!!
8. Without friends you are lost - especially in a big city like BA. I consider myself very lucky to have met soooo many nice locals in taxis, milongas, DNI and on the streets plus of course people from Panama, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, UK, Scandinavia, the Balkan, Japan and many other places in this little world. It's been a pleasure, thanks for the good time! Just a pity Robin 'Robusto' Martin had to leave my side after Cuba!
9. An expedition is always only as good as the support team! A very very big THANK YOU goes to credit-shark and chief blog commentator KHT and my koi-keeper and welcome-committee MH! Rum and Cohibas are waiting for you! Mi casa tu casa! Thanks go as well to Mr. "Connections" in Australia and my folks in PF!
10. And last but not least, blogging was a lot of fun! Thanks for reading and commenting it!
Top Music:
1. El aire en mis manos (Album: Narcotango 2), Carlos Libedinsky
2. No te mueras nunca (Album: Terminal Tango), Buschini
3. Volver al sur (Album: Ultratango), Ultratango (composers: Piazzolla, Solanas)
4. Gente que sí (Album: Narcotango 2), Carlos Libedinsky
Top Restaurants
1. La Cabrera, Cabrera y Thames
2. Meridian 58, El Salvador y Borges
3. Rave, Gorriti y Thames
Cerveza - Scheider Negra
Vino Tinto - San Felipe, 2005, Tempranillo
Best Tango school - DNI weblink here
Top Practicas/Milongas
The last day of the holidays is always dominated of hectic and stress. In my case i was mostly my overweight - of the luggage, I mean. Somehow I had the feeling that I had at least 10 kilo too much weight. Who could possibly travel to Latin-America with only 20 kilo? Hello Air France!!!
Anyway, I decided to go to the post office. After waiting patiently for 35 minutes, it was my turn. I weighed my stuff - 5.7 kilos. And then... a female voice says: "But we can only send packages up to 2 kilos! You have to go to the Correos Central... blablabla". The lady gave me the address and the bus number: 152. "Just take it to the last stop - about 20 minutes", she said. Nice help, right? Actually, it wasn't! After 20 minutes I asked the bus driver, which then points at another bus going the direction I just came from. So I got off, and took a taxi (because I thought it was faster) since I only had 2 hours left before I had to return the apartment keys. Of course, the taxi got stuck in a major traffic. Somehow the world was against me... 25 minutes later I got to the post office (guess, I could have walked faster).
There, a big lady welcomed med with a cold look: "Si?" I told her my wish to send a parcel. And then surprise she goes: "Your passport please!". Well, how should I know you need a passport for sending a parcel? So I pulled up my shoulders and went"... no, I don't have my credit card here, either...". A bit curious I asked why in the world I had to show some ID and in return I got: "You have to prove you existence". Well, I didn't exist, and I didn't stand in front of the fat lady either... so I went home - pretty pissed off. "Even worse of a paper mill than Cuba...", I thought.
To reduce weight, smart as I am, I had given away my good bottle of Havana Club Special Reserva to Sebastian already. The other bottle will make a group of travelers happy, who, for an evening, will call themselves friends of Diana. So with overweight, and no rum I had to check-in at the airport. After security a duty-free shop waited for me. Here, I thought, my rum-problem will be solved. I bought a rather bad Bacardi-1-liter-companion for my 25 Cohibas Robustos and made sure, the lady at the cashier would seal the plastic bag - with staples, which I found a bit suspicious... 13 hours later - arriving in Paris, I made it through customs (unlike some others) but the European security check proved to be going less smooth... My rum was detected and with a sweet french, but determined smile the security lady says: "Sorry, no bottles from outside Europe allowed". My but's, if's and my childish-sorry-smile did not work. Again I lost my bottle of rum. But resistant as I can be - this wouldn't not put me off my plan. The next duty-free shop waited just around the corner, and a new bottle of Havana Club Añejo Espesial got bagged and sealed. By now, I couldn't call the rum for a bargain anymore, but this one made it home and it's still a nice bottle, which will bring back the good and drown the unpleasant memories from Cuba!
After an amazing show of the DNI instructors and their friends it became quite a long night at Salón Canning (6 a.m.) - getting up today was difficult! Actually, many things are rather difficult today... I have to start packing and thinking of going home to Norway again. I have to attend my last classes today, buy some last cositas - and worst - say good-bye to all the marvellous people I met here in Buenos Aires!
Walking up the stairs is funny today - I become sentimental, thinking: "Oh, my last time up these stairs, my last this and my last that... And I am a bit afraid I will forget to say bye to the people I wanted to, or not getting their e-mail addresses. You know what leaving a good place and good people is all about...
The Chacarera class (Argentinian folklore) is fun - and at La Viruta we are going to try it tonight. There I'll also meet Javier & Maria again, who gave me my first private tango lesson (besides my queridos l&&l) in Sweden last year.
Then it´s time to say good-bye to the DNI family. It takes ages - it´s fun, and sad as well. Addresses and kisses are exchanged and I we try to find you where we one day all could meet again... Who knows ... the tango world is even smaller than the real one... But for now, the show must go on...
The next two days I will prepare my return, start to reflect and write my BA Conclusion, which makes this my second last post on this blog. Thanks for following the blog, amigos!
Sebastián and I had a private lesson just few hours before this incredible performance. I'm glad he picked up some important things just in time ;-) I enjoyed Eugenia's and Sebastián´s classes a lot. It´s a fun couple to learn from - always good for a joke, a smile, encouragement, cool moves and you can feel their genuine interest to teach tango to the world. Muchas gracias amigos!
A bit more info about them and their next project? Check it out: this link of Mar y Tango
Saving the best for last... On my last friday I in BA I had the pleasure to witness the stunning performance of Pablo Villarraza & Dana Frigoli, the brains behind the school DNI, which became my second home in BA, where you are included in the family in no time. It was a pleasure being there, learning there - especially with teachers like that!
Check it you yourself: The DNI web page link
What a day... Not only managed I to pick up my sexy shoes; I even made it to one must-see here in BA - the Cemetery of Recoleta - where Eva 'Evita' Perón was buried in 1952. Actually, the tombstone of Evita was one of the rather boring ones, but there are other scary and amazing ones! The rainy weather added a certain flavour to the ambiente today, and it sure scared the sh*t out of a lot of photographers - but my Canon is a tough one - used to the Norwegian weather, and so am I! Bloody wet and about a 100 pictures later, I left the dead for a nice warm shower. Shortly after, my last private lesson with Sebastian followed, who loved the Cuban rum I had to leave behind due to over-weight (the bag, I mean...). That was as close I ever got being a regular tourist in Buenos Aires. Maybe I´ll get lucky and find a time window to see something else - but I doubt it. Guess, I just have to come back... hihihi. Tonight we'll be at Salón Canning until early morning dew. Pablo and Dana (DNI bosses), Sebastian and Eugenia (DNI) as well as Marcello and Analia are going to have a show with live music - a spectaculo not to miss. Class tomorrow seems little tempting - but as Dana put it: "If I can have the show tonight - you can come to my class tomorrow!" La chica tiene razón, helvete!
