Mi Buenos Aires Querido

Finally with pictures!

Buenos Aires and Montevideo are located on opposite sides of the Rio de La Plata. By boat and bus you reach the other city in a few hours. One custom is conveniently located in Colonia where an Uruguayan and a Argentinian officer share a desk. In less than a minute you get the exit and entry stamp and can continue with your travels.

In Buenos Aires we stayed in an accommodation owned by our former Swiss tango teachers. They have 5 very nice rooms and you can use the kitchen. As a plus the house is located in a nice neighborhood with all what you need close by. 

For an even better travel experience we took a Spanish course. Many schools in South America offer one-week classes for travelers and there is a big demand. On Monday morning the room was packed with new students. There we were one out of many, all students are travelling for several months through South America or also round-the world. Class was intense but it was good to use our brains again and to learn that those hours of suffering during French and Italian lessons are finally paying off. The school offers complementary city tours. We took full advantage of it and went to San Telmo and Recoleta, two famous quarters. In the second there is a cemetery where among others Evita is buried. 

Not only did we meet many new people at school, we also met friends from home, being at the same time in Buenos Aires. We spent nice evenings with Julien and his wife, the friend from LA, and with the Kaufmanns, old friends I grew up with. 

Dancing tango in Buenos Aires ranked high on our bucket list. Luckily we found a good school nearby and took our first class. It went surprisingly well, Michi did remember so many things that we could actually dance right from the start on. It was not perfect and Michi still thinks I am more like a duck he has to shuffle around than a feather, but the journey is the destination. For a more intense fresh up we also took a private lesson, which really paid off. Sadly we did not have another chance to show-off our new skills. Generally the dancers are very laid back, we feared that they would be really determined and hate everybody who disgraces their tango, but they are more relaxed than many dancers at home!

We also saw a small tango show they promote everywhere but were not very impressed. I fear this is one disadvantage of having good teachers; they make average performers look lame.