Buenos Aires No 2

Hi Family, Friends, Davenanters, Dancers and Bloggers,

Sunday
This was a day to do what ever we wanted to, so we started with a walk to the Opera House and booked a tour for 12 midday. While we were waiting for our tour to commence we went out onto the main avenue and took some photos.

This is the famous July 9th Avenue (the date of Independence) and it is the widest avenue in the world with 16 lanes of traffic and a bus lane that runs down the middle. The obelisk is roughly in the middle and the building with Evita on it is at the end. 

The tour of the Opera House was magnificent. It is the second biggest opera house in the World and holds 3100 seats.

The main auditorium.

The magnificent Golden Hall where the patrons use to go to be seen and to socialise. Today it is used for recitals and rehearsals.

This is the ceiling and chandelier in the main auditorium and the opera singers and small choirs often go inside the chandelier to sing and it creates a special ethereal effect.

After our tour we prepared ourself for TANGO!! At 5.00pm we got dressed up and went to the Tango club called La Ideal that we had checked out earlier in the day:

Practicing my steps outside the club:

We had found the most quintessentially Argentinian Tango club that was full of local people and very few tourists. We observed the protocol on how to get a dance and before long we were off and we were being asked to dance by the local men! The room was old but beautiful in design and it had a brilliant dance floor. Sue and I couldn't take our eyes off a local couple who were dancing; he looked like Rod Stewart and she had such a short skirt on you could see through her black, lacy G string! Sue reckoned that she definitely had a Brazilian. We didn't know where to look!

The Protocol: Man stands up and catches the eye of lady from a distance. If lady wants to dance with man she stands up and they meet on the dance floor. Man and lady hold close embrace and start feeling the music while hovering on the spot. Man and lady set off dancing together and they have three dances and usually make conversation between each dance. At the end of the third dance the Tango music stops and a completely different piece of music is played while everyone clears the floor ready for the next set of three dances.

Inside the club:

Sue dancing:

Me dancing:

Sorry about the quality of these photos but the video makes up for them! Look out for Sue sitting at our table at the end of the video.

! Unfortunately, we didn't manage to catch a glimpse of Will.