Sushi Club and La Catedral

Grey days continue here but we are not letting them get us down. Yesterday, for Uli's day off, we made fresh pasta (Uli made the dough and everything) and spent a wonderful afternoon making it and eating it with our old friend Coy. As always she was full of sunshine and banished the cold and the grey out of Uli's apartment.
Josh and I spent the afternoon taking a long walk from Alto Palermo shopping mall back to Uli’s apartment, and played cards and hung out with Uli and Gus while Uli made muffins and we drank mate.

Making Pasta with Coy

For dinner we drove to La Canitas where we met up with Steph for a fancy dinner to thank Uli and Gus for being such good hosts. They chose to eat at a restaurant called Sushi Club. I was reminded when I looked at the menu that somewhere along the line somebody got confused and decided to put Philadelphia cream cheese in almost all of the sushi rolls that exist here in BA. After we scouted out the menu we found enough options without cream cheese to make us all happy and full and we celebrated everything there is to celebrate with a bottle of Champagne at the end.

Being Swanky at Sushi Club

It was only 1 am at that point so we clearly could not go to bed. Instead we went to La Catedral, a trendy Milonga that Fani promised we would like. She hit the nail on the head with this place. For those who don’t know a Milonga is a place where you can go to dance tango. They are informal places where you can meet new people, dance, or watch the tango and drink and mourn the fact that you don’t know how to do all those sexy moves. And sit and drink and mourn our lack of skills we did.
The space is wonderful. It’s almost like a big barn filled with posters of Che and Carlos Gardel and there is a statue of a giant heart hanging from the ceiling over the bar. No two glasses are alike and the wine is a good price.

Getting fancy with my new camera while this guy channels Marlon Brando

The Tango Continues

When we arrived the tango stopped and a band stood in the center of the dance floor and waited for silence. When they felt they had commanded enough respect they played a few songs for us and I enjoyed them immensely. After that we managed to find a table and sat back to enjoy the tango. Tango here is not like when you see a show. There it is all Brava, flashing costumes and all for show. In a Milonga you see the real tango, and the real passion. Here tango is a slow, purposeful and swirling dance, and in this space the music is almost an afterthought. It is a far away rhythm that pulses in the wrist of a man as he controls the woman leaning on him with a touch of pressure on her arm, or back. Here the man still holds all of the power in the room and the woman all of the beauty. At times it is almost embarrassing to watch a couple for two long because you almost feel like you are invading something very private, like a peeping Tom.
At around 3:30 am Uli suggested more wine and I suggested bed so we dropped Fani off at home and then slept as if I had been dancing the tango all night myself.