This trip has been a long time in the making. About 10 years ago, while still living in Seattle, I managed to get C to take some Tango classes with me, and he seemed to like it much better than the other partner dancing he's tried. At the time I was still primarily a swing dancer, but I had done some Tango at a dance camp once, and really enjoyed it. I knew people who organized yearly tango trips to BA and thought it would be fun to do sometime. Still, my idea of a dance vacation was Herrang, Sweden in July. And C's idea of a perfect travel vacation didn't involve dancing at all. We settled on Brazil for our honeymoon, because of our mutual love for Bossa Nova, and I had no expectation of dancing. I think we danced half a salsa during our entire 3 week vacation.
The move to Oakland brought several changes. I tried to integrate with the Lindy community here in the Bay Area, but found that it just wasn't giving me the same satisfaction as I had in Seattle. I did a little teaching here and there, and tried a regular gig, but couldn't maintain any enthusiasm. Within a few years, I had stopped dancing entirely. But during that early adjustment period, I did start doing a little tango here and there, and became much more interested in it.
Around that time, one of my co-workers took a three-month sabbatical in Argentina and came back full of stories about the friendly people and beautiful city. He also effused about the exchange rate, boasting that you could eat like a king, spending no more than $10 on a fancy meal, complete with wine. C was in school at the time, so the idea of a budget vacation in South America seemed like a great way to satisfy the travel urge without going broke. We started talking about the idea of visiting BA on our next major trip - thinking we'd do it soon after his graduation. It seemed like a natural destination for us - we both loved Brazil, and would like to see more of S.America. Also, BA being known as the Paris of South America doesn't hurt.And it would give me a great reason to get C back into dancing tango.
Several years have passed since we decided to make BA our next destination, and we've been doing a little prep along the way. We started tango lessons after C finished school, and have continued in spurts - sometimes missing several months at a time, but we've definitely made some progress. We took a beginning Spanish course over a year ago, and have saved up money (and miles) for the trip. The timing was always vaguely "in a year or so." We thought maybe we'd go there for his 40th birthday, or maybe four our anniversary that year, but then decided instead on New York, which blew the travel budget for a couple years. We finally decided that November would be a great time of year to be there, so we'd do it as my 40th birthday celebration. It's now more than four years since we started "seriously" talking about this trip, and I'm surprised to find myself feeling under-prepared. Haven't we had years to get ready for this? How is it that I can't remember a word of Spanish, and I'm just now starting to read about the history and culture?
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