Shall we dance?

FRIDAY:
It rained on Friday in Cordoba, which was the first rain here since February. I woke up to thunder and lightning, it was really fun. The rain was coming down like a typical calm rain in Portland, but people get really excited about it. It's similar to how Oregonians react when it snows. Several people took the opportunity to sell umbrellas on street corners. The streets are not built for rain, and neither are the sidewalks, it's so slippery when you walk. I almost fell at least five times. It happened to be the first day I had Spanish class too, and I got lost. I've been to the building twice and this time I happen to get lost...for a half hour. I went to lunch with Danny beforehand, which was lovely, but I was coming from the opposite side of town and if you know me well, you know I am not good at directions. They (my Spanish teacher and the administrative woman) were very sweet and understanding when I got there. They thought I was a half hour late because of the rain.

I loved the Spanish class. It was one on one with a woman named Flor. She was very sweet and we really hit it off. She's a great teacher, and I am looking forward to learning a lot. I am feeling more confident about my Spanish already, which has made life easier.

Guess what Danny and I did that night??? WE LEARNED HOW TO TANGO! It was really fun. It is a beautiful dance. One of our friends is going to send a recording of one of the dances from his camera. It was their second marathon since the opening of the place, and people tango for 30 hours, unfortunately some government officials got involved and stopped it prematurely. These people are professionals, so they weren't going to let that stop them, so they went to a bar, and asked them to put on some tango music and continued. Danny and I stayed until about 3 am, and we were heading home early, but evidently that was the perfect time to leave because as we were leaving the government officials arrived.

The evening started at 10pm with tango lessons. Falcundo, Danny's coworker, is a world champion tango dancer, and he taught the class. They make it look so easy, and smooth. The women are like puddy in the men's hands. The men lead with their chests, and the women follow the mans every step. It's amazing to watch after you've been taught how to do it. Then at midnight the floor is open to everyone. There were about 100 people there and it was just how you would imagine a tango club to be. Dimly lit, with a few red and white lights hanging from the ceiling. There were large unframed figure paintings lining the walls around the dance floor. At around 2:00 am a couple danced solo on the dance floor to three different songs. Two, which they had practiced, and one improvised. They look as if their ice skating across the floor. We will definitely be going back there again.

SATURDAY:
We had asado today!!! It's an Argentine BBQ. You find whatever you can to burn, and use any metal contraption you can find to put slabs of meat on, then you cook it, serve some Fernet and you have an asado. My oh my is it delicious. Everyone sings, and dances, I LOVED IT! Oh Fernet is 45% alcohol mixed with Coca Cola. It tastes like an herbal medicine I take when I have a cold. It's a Cordoba specialty. We loved the people and the food, it was such a good time. We ate blood sausage (Morcilla), which is coagulated blood. I'm not going to lie, it was not very good, but the rest of the meat was phenomenal. They invited Danny and I inside their culture. We felt so welcomed. Here's a little of what an asado is like. It's all in Spanish, sorry no subtitles :-)