Happy Feet

It's been a few weeks more than six years since I went to Costa Rica on a school trip, but the experience continues to effect me to this day. I'll spare you the cliché-laced description of how it shifted my world view and reordered my priorities in many ways, and stick to something a little more topical: while in Costa Rica, I first learned how to salsa. Despite the awful stereotype that Jews have no rhythm - these people obviously have never been to a Jewish dance - I consider myself well suited and quite comfortable moving my body to the beat of music, but as I please. Don't get me wrong, I'm no (fill in the blank of either Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Usher, etc.), but neither am I like this. So when I first confronted with the intimidating dance that is salsa (and in this same trip, merengue), I mastered the rudimentary steps and could feel that clever devil known as confidence creeping down towards my sliding feet and shaking my hips from side to side. All in all I felt 100% ok about my progress, that is until I stepped aside and let my host brother show us how it's done with his sister. The music commenced and they fluidly matched each others' movements in a perfect balance. Turns, spins, more turns, more spins, and beauty followed. Good salsa dancers are a site to behold, I assure you. It all looked so natural, I envied their skills so much.

Fast forward to the Saturday evening before last, when we all came together to celebrate our friend Felipe's birthday. First, a word about Felipe: he's our Frisbee coach (not to be mistaken with our Frisbee captain, Diego), and after that fateful first day of Ultimate almost 10 months ago, I wasn't sure what to think of him. Truthfully, I was a little intimidated; I was the new guy, he was obviously more experienced and knew everyone. He was never mean to me, but this was one of our first interactions: I went in for one possession during the game, dropped an easy throw which immediately led to a score, Felipe told me to go back to the sidelines, I wholeheartedly accepted. But over time he has proven to be one of our strongest and most consistent friends. He still has that competitive fire from when we first met, but now I realize it's the on-field personae of someone who is creative, caring, and coquettish off it. And another thing about Felipe: he loves to dance salsa. He's from Colombia, where it seems exquisite salsa dancers grow like corn in the midwest, and for his birthday he wanted to find a club where we could dance salsa. So after a delicious dinner at San Telmo-famous Des Nivel, we headed out to a salsa dance school where our other friend Stephanie (not to be confused with our Fanie) was holding her despedida. We arrived around 1:45 but I don't think I started dancing until 2 or so - let's just say that while Quilmes does not necessarily give me that aforementioned confidence, it's definitely a good bait to lure it out of its hiding place. I did my fair share of salsa-ing with Julia, Paola, and even Felipe, and by no means did I embarrass myself or my family name, but I felt painfully over matched by the other gentlemen whose feet and hips so naturally swayed from side-to-side, back and forth, without even thinking.

Part of it's definitely because I dance salsa once every 2 months and each time only retain about 20% of the skill/confidence from the previous session; but more importantly, dancing is something that we as citizens of the United States who come from European descent do not learn at a young age. The same could be said for fútbol, which is why we're painfully behind the rest of the world in the only global game on the planet, but while we were busy watching Saved by the Bell, reading The Boxcar Children, many if not most Latin American children were learning to salsa, meringue, or any other dance. North American children would be embarrassed to learn how to dance from their mothers or fathers, paired with their brothers in sister; Latin American children embrace the chance. I don't intend to over generalize, and I consider what I'm saying to be a compliment because I'm intensely jealous of this aspect of Latin American upbringing. I wish dancing salsa were so natural to me, that I wasn't falling over myself trying to keep move my hips side-to-side and forward-to-back at the same time, all while leading an experienced dancer in front of me through the varying twists and turns the dance requires. To reach the point of comfort I would have to increase my salsa-ing ten fold, something I don't think will happen, but who knows. It's at these times I really wish we lived in the Matrix so Felipe could install the steps and collective memory of all salsa dancers in my brain in a matter of seconds. Also, then I could dunk.

Or I could find a magic pair of shoes.

Classes de Salsa

Why did I dream that my back hurt so much I felt the need to stretch it only to wake up and find that I really did need to stretch it (kind of like those dreams about needing to pee that I always have)? Read on to find out!!
My friend and companiera de casa (house mate) Jessica, who has been making regular appearances on this blog in varied posts from masked partier at Carnival to narrator extraordinaire for the empanada video brought me to my first salsa class at Azucar two weeks ago. Of course we were late, but jumped into it. For 10 pesos you get an hour and a half of salsa, an hour and a half of rock and roll, and then ANOTHER hour and a half more of salsa if you have the ganas (a word you should get used to: there is no direct translation, its somewhere between desire and ability and something else, its stronger and different from to want...its a great word - ex. Ulise - do you have want to dance tonight? me - hmmm, no tengo ganas depues 3 horas de bilando - i don't have ganas after dancing for three hours). Oh and did I mention the free coat check?
Well last time we had to leave because Zach and Evelyn had arrived and I had a dinner to attend, but this week we brought Ted and his friend Rebecca who was visiting and Jessica and I stayed for Rock and Roll as well. Salsa was a little bit easier this time. Again we were late, but tried to pick up the steps we had missed. First you stand in lines and practice the steps, and then you get into a circle of boys and girls. You dance for a few minutes, practice a few steps and then the girls rotate around in a circle. Its a bit like speed dating. A bit too much like speed dating. Anyway, lucky for me I eventually ended up with a guy who was actually a little bit worse than me (he lacked the strong arm that tells a woman what to do during the dance) and instead of making me turn he would tell me to turn...kinda lame, BUT he had the ganas to practice a lot so instead of standing aorund and watching I got to practice with him for a while. I was one behind Jessica, and everytime I moved to a new partner they would say to me, "Oh, you are Jessica's friend?" "Si" I would respond, and then the salsa would begin.
After Salsa was over, Jess and I decided to stay for Rock and Roll even though Ted and Rebecca dipped out. So what is Rock and Roll exactly? I was wondering myself. Its essentially Swing dancing. After a short intro dance off type thing led by this crazy guy we split off into beginner and intermediate while expert couples stayed on the floor. I, dripping with sweat, picked up quickly what I have been kind of doing anyway for years at dances. It occurred to me as I danced and twirled with an older man with longish dark curly hair, a tight grey t-shirt, large pectorals, and an annoyed look on his face aimed at the number of times he had to turn me, that I had come to Argentina to learn not one, but two dances not native to the country and one which was actually from my own. You may want to know why I am not taking Tango classes. Let's just say Tango is not what the kids are into these days. I felt increasingly silly learning how to Swing dance in the country of Tango as a Christmas song came on and I think Jess and I were the only one's who knew we were dancing to a US Christmas song in March. We left early again so we could sprint to the GIANT Coto supermarket near the class and spent way to long there wandering around, and getting yelled at of course.
At this amazing Coto there is a large table of empanadas and yummy stuff. The empandas are only $AR 1.99. We had to have one, and we couldn't wait. We went to the woman who weighs empanadas and puts the price sticker on it and we asked her if we could eat it right away. She said that once the sticker goes on we could do what we wanted! Gleefully we skipped over to the microwave and heated our prospective treats. They were tasty.
Afterwards were were wandering around wondering where in tarnation the canned good section was, and a security guard motioned to Jessica to follow him. We tried to explain that a woman told us we could eat it and that we were going to pay for everything. He would not speak a word, and every word we spoke would cause him to turn around and motion at us again with his hand. I honestly thought Jess was going to get kicked out. But no, he simply insisted that we pay for our eagerly eaten empanadas immediately. Afterwards he dragged us somewhere else and at this point I was sure we were both being kicked out. But no, he just wanted to hand us our empty Styrofoam (yes Styrofoam is still all the rage here) plates in a plastic bag so we wouldn't miss out on having them. Oh Argentina, me encantas.

This One's For You Shelley...

Quick update on the arrival of Zach and Evelyn (Josh's brother and his girlfriend). They arrived Sunday with no problems to speak of other than sleep deprivation and turned down our idea of Salsa classes which I selfishly had presumed they would have the energy for. It has been almost 5 months since I've flown to a different continent though...so forgive my memory. Jessica and I went anyway while Josh showed them San Telmo and our house. After working up an appetite and learning some new steps I came back to the house and after a few hands of Truco we headed to La Brigada for the most scrumptious dinner I've had the fortune of having in Buenos Aires. It was recommended to us by one of Jessica's friends and it lived up to its expectations. Of course I ate myself sick and somehow dairy sneaked into my dinner again and I spent the rest of the night doubled over on the couch watching the Oscars.
Today we hit up some of the good outdoor sights seeing as it was a beautiful day. We hit up Plaza de Mayo and took Avenida de Mayo all the way to the Congresso pausing for a coffee. We then walked to the Recoleta Cemetary which never ceases to be a favorite site of mine. After we headed back to San Telmo to do some dinner shopping and then to La Bomba. La bomba turned out to the a bust again and is in fact being shut down because it has become too big and is causing problems. There must have been 1,000 people milling around the streets, selling or eating empanadas or burritos from this guy who is a genius and making bank. People with tickets couldn't get in, so we had no hope. Zach and Evelyn made a getaway and headed back to San Telmo for the night, and Josh and I headed to our friends Mike and Kyla (who we had seen in line) for some poker and beer with Andrew and his visiting friend. All in all buena hondas. I won one hand!!! We took the convenient colectivo 24 to our street to our bustling house, had a bit of dinner, and now its time for bed.