The trip to BsAs has suddenly gone from something coming up in the not too distant future to something which is almost upon me. I have so much to do. Eek.
I know there are many people in the tango blogosphere who've been, or even who live there now. Do you have any advice for an English girl on her first trip? Any dos or don'ts? Anything I might not expect but desperately need to know in order not to disgrace myself?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Wait to be deluged. Let me get back to you on that...
!!!
Hurrah!
Psyche - almost everyone who has ever been to BA has a list of helpful suggestions. Everyone's will be different.
Since you will be going soon, you will be arriving at the beginning of their summer, which can be excruciatingly hot and humid. I went in January the first time :-)
Here are a couple of suggestions:
1. Take an extra pair of shoes that are a size larger than usual, since your feet will resemble melons more than feet after a couple of days of nonstop dancing. And/or take a pair of low heeled shoes.
1a. Your favorite painkiller, such as Aleve or Motrin (also for the feet).
2. Take as little as possible with you to the milongas. Your dance shoes (which many would encourage that you don't change into at your table), a fresh top (you will be sweating and sweated upon massively), and just enough money (in small bills) to buy your drinks, cab or subte fare, and dinner. Leave everything else at home. You will be leaving your bag at your table while you dance, and wearing a "bum bag" (the American name is a dirty word to you English folk, I understand...) around your waist is really unattractive, and labels you as a TOURIST.
3. Do not wear fancy jewelry on the street. While crime is not necessarily rampant, there is really no reason to court it.
4. Do not wear heavy perfume. It may not be to everyone's liking.
5. Make sure you have enough pesos to last several days BEFORE you arrive - even if the exchange rate isn't the best. Changing money is notoriously difficult in BA.
6. Have a blast!!!! (I'm so jealous!!)
Johanna - thank you so much!
I must confess to being more than a little scared about the weather. I've never coped with extreme heat well, and in high humidity have been known to have funny turns. Are places mostly air-conditioned? Or does it depend where you go?
Yes, the word you're thinking of means something quite different here from in the states!
Is it easy to get money from cashpoints? Are the charges high?
To address your concerns:
Weather there is very changeable, but hot and humid is the definition of the BA summer. Local blogueras/os may correct me if I'm mistaken. There are occasional cooler, dryer days, but mostly not.
I don't want to totally freak you out, but most of the popular milongas were NOT air-conditioned. Of course, that too may have changed since the last time I was there. As I said, expect to be drenched.
That having been said, the bliss of that embrace pretty much makes you forget your discomfort. Unless your feet hurt. At lest that was the case for me. On my subsequent trips I went when it was cooler and rarely had foot problems.
Also, you MUST drink a ton of water. Almost everyone buys bottles of bubbly water at the milongas. I go through about 2-3.
As for the cash, you should contact any of the local blogueras/os to get the latest information on this. My personal feeling is that unless you are changing tens of thousands of pounds, the amount of money you will "lose" due to fees or differences in exchange rates will be noise level and not worth the aggravation of searching for a cheaper money source.
This is NOT the case for people who live there, but for visitors such as us, unless you are obsessed by that sort of thing, just find what is convenient. The last time I was there I'd go to banks. The lines were long. I withdrew money from ATMs. Most convenient, but go with someone to watch your back. Again, the locals will have much better info on this.
Hey Pysche, in answer to this plea I posted yesterday a little something for you on my blog. You might find a few things there and in the resulting comments to help you prepare. I've written a bit in the post about the money/ATM situation. Following on from Johanna, I am now also going to add a bit more information as a comment about using the ATMs.
Any which way chica, just enjoy, ENJOY!
How long are you coming for again?
As long as I can! Several months at least, hopefully, but we'll see how it goes.
So many times I have been "just" about to go to BsAs. But something is jinxing me, everytime there was an opportunity something unavoidable came up...
ENJOY!
Post a Comment