Plumbing Adventures
Many thanks to all who have emailed and left comments here on the blog. It is extremely gratifying that anyone takes the time to read this at all, let alone get a kick out of it! Do keep ´em coming.
Philip, if I wanted the thrill of a rowdy football match, I have my pick in London! I shall ignore your advice, much as you ignored mine in Las Vegas; and I shall care about as much as you cared missing out on all those great shows and Elvises!
John, I am doing my best with the Spanish and finally, finally making some sense of it. All the classes are in Spanish, so I have no excuse for not knowing words like left, right, foot etc. But people who speak good English are always keen to practise and I often opt for the line of least resistence!
Paddie, yes the foxy, foxy killer heels have been out, and they will be out again over the weekend. I am a bit scared of tripping in them though as they are higher and spikier than anything else I possess, so it is one more thing to remember not to stab myself while crossing or uncrossing my feet. And there are SO MANY important things I have to remember while dancing, some of which will I hope one day come naturally to me.
Yesterday was a rainy rainy day here in Bs As. Happily, it only seems to rain for a day at a time and now the sun is shining. I awoke late morning when the phone rang - Debbie calling from South Africa to say hello and tell me how she´s been settling back in after her holiday to London for Niki´s wedding last month. Cute. It is a small world really. I´ve sat in my living room in Bs As talking to my sister in Los Angeles, Dominique in Hong Kong, Debbie in Johannesburg and now one of the tenants in London worried that the inscrutable lady upstairs is about to cut off their water supply. And of course the BT 1571 lady as my Daddy seems to be out or screening his calls whenever I ring.
So I spent yesterday morning at home reading, then went out to the Teatro Colon, which is one of the world´s top opera houses. Daddy had told me about it on the way to the airport and he knows a thing or two about opera. It is a splendid place, more like Versailles than Covent Garden. I took the hour-long tour, which included some time in the Presidential box watching the resident orchestra rehearse, then a solo violin recital in the Presidential reception room. Then they take the tour down into the bowels of the place, which stretch right under the huge Avenida 9 Julio and include carpentry, scenery painting, costume and shoe workshops as well as practice areas for the performers. We saw some ballet dancers going through their paces, which was interesting. I booked myself a ticket too for next week to go and see a Verdi opera called the Lombards and the First Crusade, which I had never heard of and Daddy reckons has not been performed in London in his time. I wonder why - we shall see!
As it was glorious sunshine today, I went over to the smart area of town, called Recoleta. It is mainly for this area that Buenos Aires is called the Paris of the South and it´s a fair comparison. One of the main draws though is its cemetery, which is quite incredible. It is said that it is cheaper to live a life of extravagence than to have your eternal rest here (cheaper still to do neither!) and indeed it is a lavish place. It is the first time I have felt inspired to take out my camera, so expect all my holiday photos to be of stone angels and decrepit memorials. The place is laid out like a small town and each family has its own ´house´ in styles that range from the baroque to the bizarre, with some serious statuary and poignant stained glass panels. Many of them have clear glass windows, through which you can see the coffins stacked up inside. I don´t know enough about decomposition etc but couldn´t help wondering how that all pans out. Some families have presumably died out - or maybe fallen on hard times - as the memorials are allowed to fall apart; coffins too, alarmingly enough. There were no bones on display though, so maybe there is some level of decrepitude that they are allowed to reach before the authorities step in and tidy up. Evita´s grave is there, though it is nothing special to look at. There are all sorts of generals and worthy citizens who founded this or that according to the brass plaques on the memorials. One memorial has a life size statue of a man in a dressing gown, which was a bit strange until I looked it up in the guide and found he was some famous boxer.
Also in Recoleta is a complex of parks, one of which has this stunning huge shiny metal statue of a water lilly, which opens its petals in the morning and closes them at sunset. It is set in a big round pond with water cascading off the sides and I spent a long time walking around it looking at all the reflections. It is something to do with some architect friend of Outi´s in London, but I can´t quite remember what. From there I walked up to the new national library, a hideous concrete building that is apparently of some merit: hey ho, call me a philistine!
So, I have made some effort to take in the sights and next week I will make another. I´ll probably kick myself when I get back to London but I feel sort of at home here and not really drawn to sightseeing.
Last night I went to a class at Gricel that was being taken by Miguel Angel Pla, the fantastic tango teacher who I have mentioned before and who I knew slightly from his visits to London. He teaches here with a beautiful young woman called Mariella, and I will go again to her lessons after Miguel has left Bs As next week. It was an interesting lesson and I have taken away more homework to get my giros and boleos to come more naturally. As ever, he criticised the tenseness of my shoulders which he cannot really understand. I told him it is because I am English which he seemed to think was a joke! How I am ever going to master the business of relaxing the top part of my body yet keeping my legs lively and my arms just the right place on the floppy to firm spectrum, I do not know. Miguel seemed quite uninterested in giving me any private lessons while I am here, probably because he knows I am quite lazy between times and will never be a great dancer. It must be depressing to teach someone like me!
Sometimes I look at other people dancing and I absolutely cannot believe that I can do it. Sometimes even when I have just sat down from doing it I cannot believe that I can do it.
So where else have I been dancing this week? I mentioned briefly that on Monday I went to a lesson with Ricardo Vidort (thanks Michele for clearing that up!) , who is a lovely teacher of the old school. He is another one who can get hold of you and make you dance well, although it is slightly disconcerting that his heavy smoking makes him wheeze as he dances. I met a chap there who I recognised as the Michael with the pony tail who teaches in New Malden. We chatted for a while before he had to go back to Mei for his supper, then on for their last all-nighter before getting on a plane in the morning back to London. I didn´t dance with him and as he only ever dances with Mei in London, I doubt I ever will.
After that lesson, in the fabulous Leonesa centre, I stayed on for the milonga and danced with a few people before my rumbling tummy sent me home at half past ten. The lady who runs it had to come up and give me a hint to look behind me for the nod and a wink as there were people there who wanted to give me a test run! She had been sent over by a lovely and rather cheeky dancer called Rueben, so I was glad she had pointed that out.
Tuesday night I went out to el Beso, which looks much more like a nightclub as we know it but of course all the dancing is tango. In fact, following a suggestion by my sister Elizabeth, I found a great website with photographs of some of these places, so I have put the link up on the right hand navigation bar - do take a look. It is the sort of place where then man takes your ticket and tells you where to sit; in my case this was on a bench wedged between a couple of other single women. It was already quite busy when I arrived and looking around, I noticed quite a few faces from earlier milongas. This included a couple of men I had had had no chemistry with at all, so I was able to avoid looking them in the eye - great system! I do wish we did it in London. In fact I wonder now whether they were doing it at the milongas I went to in Hong Kong - I thought they were just being unfriendly!
Rather heartbreakingly, the man with the pink shirt from Ideal was there (in a different shirt!) but he didn´t give me the nod all evening. The music was all rather heartbreaking too that evening and I felt quite overwhelmed at times: wanted to smoke one minute, pick somebody up the next, burst into tears a moment later. I didn´t do any of those things and ordered an Irish coffee instead. When I got home I called Dominique in Hong Kong and had a distressing chat with her, so a good cry about that did at least get some of the emotion out.
Well, the internet place is about to close, so I´ll just say that I had a quiet day on Wednesday with plumbing adventures - a constantly flushing toilet is no joke! - and am off to Salon Canning tonight - after my steak and my nap of course.
Adios amigos!
Philip, if I wanted the thrill of a rowdy football match, I have my pick in London! I shall ignore your advice, much as you ignored mine in Las Vegas; and I shall care about as much as you cared missing out on all those great shows and Elvises!
John, I am doing my best with the Spanish and finally, finally making some sense of it. All the classes are in Spanish, so I have no excuse for not knowing words like left, right, foot etc. But people who speak good English are always keen to practise and I often opt for the line of least resistence!
Paddie, yes the foxy, foxy killer heels have been out, and they will be out again over the weekend. I am a bit scared of tripping in them though as they are higher and spikier than anything else I possess, so it is one more thing to remember not to stab myself while crossing or uncrossing my feet. And there are SO MANY important things I have to remember while dancing, some of which will I hope one day come naturally to me.
Yesterday was a rainy rainy day here in Bs As. Happily, it only seems to rain for a day at a time and now the sun is shining. I awoke late morning when the phone rang - Debbie calling from South Africa to say hello and tell me how she´s been settling back in after her holiday to London for Niki´s wedding last month. Cute. It is a small world really. I´ve sat in my living room in Bs As talking to my sister in Los Angeles, Dominique in Hong Kong, Debbie in Johannesburg and now one of the tenants in London worried that the inscrutable lady upstairs is about to cut off their water supply. And of course the BT 1571 lady as my Daddy seems to be out or screening his calls whenever I ring.
So I spent yesterday morning at home reading, then went out to the Teatro Colon, which is one of the world´s top opera houses. Daddy had told me about it on the way to the airport and he knows a thing or two about opera. It is a splendid place, more like Versailles than Covent Garden. I took the hour-long tour, which included some time in the Presidential box watching the resident orchestra rehearse, then a solo violin recital in the Presidential reception room. Then they take the tour down into the bowels of the place, which stretch right under the huge Avenida 9 Julio and include carpentry, scenery painting, costume and shoe workshops as well as practice areas for the performers. We saw some ballet dancers going through their paces, which was interesting. I booked myself a ticket too for next week to go and see a Verdi opera called the Lombards and the First Crusade, which I had never heard of and Daddy reckons has not been performed in London in his time. I wonder why - we shall see!
As it was glorious sunshine today, I went over to the smart area of town, called Recoleta. It is mainly for this area that Buenos Aires is called the Paris of the South and it´s a fair comparison. One of the main draws though is its cemetery, which is quite incredible. It is said that it is cheaper to live a life of extravagence than to have your eternal rest here (cheaper still to do neither!) and indeed it is a lavish place. It is the first time I have felt inspired to take out my camera, so expect all my holiday photos to be of stone angels and decrepit memorials. The place is laid out like a small town and each family has its own ´house´ in styles that range from the baroque to the bizarre, with some serious statuary and poignant stained glass panels. Many of them have clear glass windows, through which you can see the coffins stacked up inside. I don´t know enough about decomposition etc but couldn´t help wondering how that all pans out. Some families have presumably died out - or maybe fallen on hard times - as the memorials are allowed to fall apart; coffins too, alarmingly enough. There were no bones on display though, so maybe there is some level of decrepitude that they are allowed to reach before the authorities step in and tidy up. Evita´s grave is there, though it is nothing special to look at. There are all sorts of generals and worthy citizens who founded this or that according to the brass plaques on the memorials. One memorial has a life size statue of a man in a dressing gown, which was a bit strange until I looked it up in the guide and found he was some famous boxer.
Also in Recoleta is a complex of parks, one of which has this stunning huge shiny metal statue of a water lilly, which opens its petals in the morning and closes them at sunset. It is set in a big round pond with water cascading off the sides and I spent a long time walking around it looking at all the reflections. It is something to do with some architect friend of Outi´s in London, but I can´t quite remember what. From there I walked up to the new national library, a hideous concrete building that is apparently of some merit: hey ho, call me a philistine!
So, I have made some effort to take in the sights and next week I will make another. I´ll probably kick myself when I get back to London but I feel sort of at home here and not really drawn to sightseeing.
Last night I went to a class at Gricel that was being taken by Miguel Angel Pla, the fantastic tango teacher who I have mentioned before and who I knew slightly from his visits to London. He teaches here with a beautiful young woman called Mariella, and I will go again to her lessons after Miguel has left Bs As next week. It was an interesting lesson and I have taken away more homework to get my giros and boleos to come more naturally. As ever, he criticised the tenseness of my shoulders which he cannot really understand. I told him it is because I am English which he seemed to think was a joke! How I am ever going to master the business of relaxing the top part of my body yet keeping my legs lively and my arms just the right place on the floppy to firm spectrum, I do not know. Miguel seemed quite uninterested in giving me any private lessons while I am here, probably because he knows I am quite lazy between times and will never be a great dancer. It must be depressing to teach someone like me!
Sometimes I look at other people dancing and I absolutely cannot believe that I can do it. Sometimes even when I have just sat down from doing it I cannot believe that I can do it.
So where else have I been dancing this week? I mentioned briefly that on Monday I went to a lesson with Ricardo Vidort (thanks Michele for clearing that up!) , who is a lovely teacher of the old school. He is another one who can get hold of you and make you dance well, although it is slightly disconcerting that his heavy smoking makes him wheeze as he dances. I met a chap there who I recognised as the Michael with the pony tail who teaches in New Malden. We chatted for a while before he had to go back to Mei for his supper, then on for their last all-nighter before getting on a plane in the morning back to London. I didn´t dance with him and as he only ever dances with Mei in London, I doubt I ever will.
After that lesson, in the fabulous Leonesa centre, I stayed on for the milonga and danced with a few people before my rumbling tummy sent me home at half past ten. The lady who runs it had to come up and give me a hint to look behind me for the nod and a wink as there were people there who wanted to give me a test run! She had been sent over by a lovely and rather cheeky dancer called Rueben, so I was glad she had pointed that out.
Tuesday night I went out to el Beso, which looks much more like a nightclub as we know it but of course all the dancing is tango. In fact, following a suggestion by my sister Elizabeth, I found a great website with photographs of some of these places, so I have put the link up on the right hand navigation bar - do take a look. It is the sort of place where then man takes your ticket and tells you where to sit; in my case this was on a bench wedged between a couple of other single women. It was already quite busy when I arrived and looking around, I noticed quite a few faces from earlier milongas. This included a couple of men I had had had no chemistry with at all, so I was able to avoid looking them in the eye - great system! I do wish we did it in London. In fact I wonder now whether they were doing it at the milongas I went to in Hong Kong - I thought they were just being unfriendly!
Rather heartbreakingly, the man with the pink shirt from Ideal was there (in a different shirt!) but he didn´t give me the nod all evening. The music was all rather heartbreaking too that evening and I felt quite overwhelmed at times: wanted to smoke one minute, pick somebody up the next, burst into tears a moment later. I didn´t do any of those things and ordered an Irish coffee instead. When I got home I called Dominique in Hong Kong and had a distressing chat with her, so a good cry about that did at least get some of the emotion out.
Well, the internet place is about to close, so I´ll just say that I had a quiet day on Wednesday with plumbing adventures - a constantly flushing toilet is no joke! - and am off to Salon Canning tonight - after my steak and my nap of course.
Adios amigos!
posted by Rachel in Buenos Aires at 10:56 pm
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