A busy day!
Street art everywhere
I think everyone on the tour has taken part in either a biking or walking street art tour. I have invited them to write about their favorites, and I will add in and update this as I get more from each person.
Dance classes
Monday night classes at El Motivo with Valencia Batiuk
Most of us are taking private lessons from various teachers, mostly Jose Garofalo and Valencia Batiuk. On top of that, some of us took the advanced class at El Motivo Monday; others showed up for the all-levels class.
I enjoy attending a class that makes me pay attention to details! Vale described the class as “Well, we teach an advanced class, but a lot of intermediates come. We don’t slow down for them, and they can do as well as they can.”
The class was huge and loud. I appreciated the help that we received from Valencia’s helper. As Luciana and Dina were out of town, the usual triumvirate was reduced to one person teaching. It felt great to dance moves I have not taught for years because of their difficulty. I am inspired to start teaching my advanced class again!
Part of our group at Gricel
Milonga review: Club Gricel, La Rioja 1180
We arrived in three chunks during the evening. One group misunderstood the reservation process and tried to reserve through the club instead of the organizer and ended up squashed into a corner. I reserved through WhatsApp and got a great seat. Cat and Mel showed up later; I don’t know if they had reservations, but they got a table near the bar. In the end Patrick and Sally coaxed better seating out of the host after waiting for a while as I suggested.
Tips to get better seats
Pro tip#1: Show up early: most organizers keep some tables free for last-minute arrivals. If you show up right at the beginning of an evening, you can often still get a seat.
Pro tip #2: Some people make reservations and then don’t show up. Different organizers have various ways of dealing with this, but usually, there is a cut-off time when unused reservations are then available to dancers who walk in. Wait until that cut-off time, and then ask nicely. You may get a better seat!
Club Gricel has been renovated and the dance floor is fabulous, if still hard to cabeceo down the length
Pro tip #3: Just make a reservation! Now that most organizers have WhatsApp, you can type in your request using Google Translate, and the old nightmare of telephoning in a foreign language is no longer a problem.
The male grapevine
I danced with two men who I already knew, but then the invitations to dance exploded. I had no idea that there is a regular male grapevine; how I didn’t know this is beyond me, since women always share opinions about how a dance went. One guy told me, “Oh I heard you were a really good dancer!” This is another advantage of speaking Spanish, as I only danced with Argentines, who apparently did not feel that foreign men needed to get in on the dance action.
New shoes
I wish I had not worn new shoes! I should have brought two pairs with me, but I felt lazy and packed one. My feet gave out after 2.5 hours of solid tandas. I knew that I would not be able to dance the next night if I continued. A younger me would have ignored that, but the voice of reason won, and I went home with the early risers in our group.