Introduction to Carlos Gardel

Even though we were pretty tired from all the travel, I think we did well in diving into the culture of Buenos Aires yesterday. In the afternoon, we walked down the block to La Rosalida for a late lunch. The waitress was very nice and patient with our Spanish which ranges from very poor to non-existant. The food and wine were excellent.

Last night we went to a tango show, the ¨Esquina Carlos Gardel¨. The theater where the show takes place is about 20 minutes by taxi. So we had our first experience traveling by taxi in Buenos Aires. It went very well. I had a brochure with the address of the tango show and a card with the address of the guest house. So we didn´t have to rely on our Spanish speaking abilities. The tango show included dinner which we enjoyed very much. The dancers and orchestra put on quite a show. We sat next to a couple from Australia and 2 sisters. One of the sisters was from Connecticut and the other sister lives on a coffee plantation in Panama.

We are staying at Lina´s Tango Guesthouse. This guesthouse is in the San Telmo district. This is one of the city´s oldest neighborhoods, once the home of the very wealthy until the 1877 outbreak of yellow fever. We spent some time with Lina this morning. We talked a lot about tango. Lina describes herself as a ¨tango addict¨ which we understand very well. Lina said that she had guests staying here that are from Australia and South Africa. It really shows that the popularity of tango spans the globe. She helped us come up with an agenda for the next couple of days. Today we are going to an antiques market at the Plaza Dorrego. We will meet later with Lina and she is taking us to one of her favorite milongas. Monday we will have a tango lesson in the afternoon and go to another milonga in the evening. On Tuesday we are going to see about having some tango dance shoes made.