Buenos Aires - Day 3

Our plan today, Comme Il Faut then afternoon tea at the Palace Alvear Hotel. We've been so looking forward to this day. I even had dreams of sitting on the plush seat in the showroom waiting for the stacks of brand new shoes to float out of their stock room. Finally the day has come, where our feet will meet their new lovers.

When we arrived at the showroom, there were several people trying on shoes. We took our seats and then two sales ladies came out to ask for our sizes. Malena's stack of shoes came out first. I had fun sorting through her selections. Finally, my stack came out 5 minutes later. I fell in love instantly when she opened the first box. Pretty black lace on pink satin. I don't normally wear pink shoes but this was a very wearable nude pink and they just screamed Agent Provocator when I put them on. Hmmm, how practical! I looked through the rest of the boxes but nothing jumped out at me. A couple of traditional black strappies and some flashy neon colors in patent leather. I asked what else she had hiding in the back room. She disappeared for a few minutes and returned empty handed. "Sorry, we do not have in your size." Hmmm, she must be lying! How is it possible they only had 6 pairs of shoes in my size instock?? I asked her to please check again. "Sorry, your size is all sold out. You can come Friday... we'll have more shoes Friday." Malena ended up buying two pairs she wasn't totally in love with. Needless to say, we left there a slightly disappointed.

I tried to cheer Malena up and asked if she was ready for our fabulous afternoon tea. "Yeah, I guess so.", She replied with a pout. It’s funny but I knew what that meant. I hailed a taxi and said, "Come on, we're not done yet." Neo Tango wasn't that far away and their selection hadn’t really changed much since I was there in May. Their styles were trendy and I still don’t feel the construction is as sturdy as CIFs. Malena half heartedly bought one pair. We left the store even more disappointed. How can this be??? We flew eleven hours for some kickass one of a kind tango shoes! This can't be!!! Then it hit me... Raquel shoes! A new brand designed by a tanguera from the south of France. I remembered they'd just opened their first store in BsAs. I flipped through our B.A. Tango magazine....Viola! there it was. I hailed another taxi.... "Arenales 1974, por favore."

When we arrived at the showroom on the third floor, we were greeted by a lovely older gentleman, who turned out to be Raquel's husband. He gave us the lowdown on how Raquel started her business and talked about the wonderful milongas they host weekly in their home in the south of France. The styles were stylish and sophisticated but definitely not flashy. I was surprised by the comfort of these shoes... my feet didn't teeter one bit. I was told that each new style is "milonga tested" by Raquel herself. When I was trying on a pair of red suede mary janes, he took me by the hand and we danced in the showroom. He was so delightful that he made me forget where I was. He finally had to say, "Hmm... you might want to look in the mirror to see the shoes while we're dancing." But of course! Why else would we be dancing in a shoe store with no music at 4:30 in the afternoon???

We got so carried away buying shoes that we were 30 minutes late for our tango lessons. Maestro was annoyed because he had to be somewhere. We walked in like two guilty little kids... looking down while clutching our bags of goodies. We had to break open our new shoes because we didn't have enough time to stop by the apartment. Maestro was kidding around and said, "Let me wear my fuzzy slippers, so I don't ruin your new shoes." It started out as a joke but, as it turned out, the fuzzy slippers didn't really interfere with our lessons, so we let them stay. They were a pair of fuzzy monster feet, black with red claws. My favorite part was when he lead the sandwich. It was mighty warm and toasty!

Since we skipped afternoon tea, we were both starving and super cranky. After our lessons, we dropped off the bags at the apartment then ran to a local restaurant in Las Canitas, Campo Bravo. That is where we inhaled our first real parilla dinner with a bottle of red. We tried to figure out what part of the cow each piece of meat came from but by that point we were just too hungry to care. Must admit the mystery meat was delicioso! We topped off dinner with a nice plate of crepe con dulce de luce.

Tonight's destination; Saloon Canning. We hopped into taxi and noticed our taxi driver right away... he had the most beautiful green eyes. It turns out he also tangos and said he might stop by after his shift. We arrived at 12:00am and the place was packed. We spotted Ney Melo, Robin Thomas, Rebecca Shulman, many tourists from New York. Gabriel Misse performed that night. When we sat down, the guy from London, whom we had empanadas with the night before, approached our table. He went straight for Malena. He asked her if she is from Russia because she has those distant eyes... "ohh so present but yet so far far away." Malena was speechless and I wanted to burst out laughing. They left the table to dance while I ordered our champagne. A couple of guys that I danced with from last night came by and kissed me hello on the cheek. I love being a part of this tango community. You share a few dances and some idle chats with a total stranger then you're automatically friends.

It was a lay back night. We danced a few tandas and chilled with our champagne. At about 3:00am, we watched our cute taxi driver stroll in. He said hello to someone then surveyed the room but then turned around and left. We would have said hello but we felt it was best to leave early, since we have our lessons at noon the next day. Got into bed completely restless ... hmmm, Ambien to the rescue!