On this grey and rainy day we finished up our 4 month stay in the city of Tango.
It’s been such a wonderful time as we met a few new friends, discovered many new restaurants and most of all danced a lot of tango!!!
So now we sit at the airport lounge, drink DV Catana Malbec, and wait for our flight to Miami.
We went to the security checkpoint pretty easily, but at immigrations we encountered an interesting situation.
Years ago, I applied for and received a temporary DNI in Argentina… and have used this to exit and enter the country. But this time, they discovered that my DNI had expired. So I had to pay the fine for overstaying my time here in Argentina.
This year, we neglected to go to Uruguay after 90 days of living in Buenos Aires, because I totally forgot that my DNI expired . I didn’t realize that we had to leave the country.
So at immigration I had to pay the fine of 12,000 pesos or $ 12 US.
OMG, it is cheaper to pay the fine than to pay the ferry fare to Uruguay, not only because you paying about $ 150 US dollars round trip and losing a day in your life in the ferry boats.
Makes an interesting dilemma.
But upon my return, I will renew my DNI.
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This year’s travels will take us to the Northwest, Florida, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Finland, France and Portugal with our return to BsAs in Mid December.
Recently, a few friends visited me in Buenos Aires. What fun!!! It was a great time to catch up on our lives, share our stories have a coffee especially in BsAs with all the marvelous cafes.
First visitor was, Gabriela Condrea from Seattle, who is the leader and organizer behind Tango Stride and HugsthatEmpower.Org a 501 C3 nonprofit organization. The mission of HugsthatEmpower is to help people with physical disabilities improve their walking ability while trying to reach their full potential for a vibrant life. This nonprofit group helps out by financially filling the gap of post-rehabilitation therapy through the TangoStride™ Program by subsidizing tango classes for those in need. TangoStride teaches tango to people with brain injury or degenerative diseases of the body and other physical impairments. She has some impressive results with the program helping to improve the quality of life of those individuals affected by the loss of motor skill.
Gabriela, who is based in Seattle, WA founded this organization about 10 years and she continues teaching tango to beginner students weekly. She’s a very kind, caring and wonderful person. I truly enjoy my time with her as it’s not a frequent encounter for us.
She’s a frequent visitor to BsAs, this time she was here for a couple of weeks before embarking on a trip to the north to visit Iguazú waterfalls. When here, she loves dancing tango with the old milongueros y Portenyos. So if you see her, give her a hug!
Next in was a tango friend from Alaska, who just retired and was starting his traveling and dancing tango life.
We figured out the last time we saw each other was atthe San Diego Tango Festival in 2019. It was great to sit for a couple of hours at one of my favorite cafes, Tonica. We had a few hours to catch up on retirement and the travels from my tango friend from Alaska, Al Villanueva. Great travels my friend, as he was off to Morocco.
Jan y Christine
Next up are two of my bestie friends, Chica Christine Sampson from Seattle and New Zealand and my other Chica, Jan Sheeley, who is a former Brit that’s lived in Seattle area for many years.
Haven’t had a chance to hang out with them since their visit to me in Florida in 2023 November. Really not that long ago but was only 4 whirlwind days.
My friends are amazing and very good tango tourists too. They will shop for clothes and tango shoes. Go to at least one or two milongas a day. Go out for dinner, too.The pace that they can keep is amazing.
This process will go on for about 2 weeks.
Dance, drink, eat, shop, repeat and throw in a bit of sleeping too.
Me y Jan at Nuevo Chicque
I love all their energy and enthusiasm. We will try new restaurants. And some new Milongas, too. We will visit new and old places to shop for tango clothes. We have created many wonderful experiences over the years of visiting Buenos Aires.
When we will go to all our favorite milongas, we are lucky as we have two fabulous leaders with us. Jamie Steele from New Zealand is Christine’s partner. They actually met here in Buenos Aires at the Milonga, Sueno Portenyo, in 2019. They did a bit of a long distance relationship, and then Christine jumped into living her life in New Zealand with Jamie. She moved most of her possessions and her goofy dog there, too. They continue to this day except Christine lives a bit more in the US as she has a son who is completing and graduating from university soon. As to Jamie, he is still working part-time, just had his first grandchild whom he adores, so they travel to spend time together and still live separately part of the year, too.
Christine y Jamie
Then there’s my partner Maximo, whom I also met at Sueno Portenyo quite a while ago. We live in the marvelous city 4 months a year. We are truly fortunate to have two beautiful leads with us.
Maximo y Jamie
My friend, Jan, continues to live in the Seattle area, as she is an amazing and caring woman where her family is concerned. One of her grand daughters, might be competing on the US Olympics Diving team, and currently, she is an active participant in that process doing lots of driving and flying to competitions.
Dinner at Sintesis
Yes, we are all amazing, active, kind caring wise women who are in the prime of our post career lives.
It was so much fun to have all my extended family here in Buenos Aires for a few weeks.
Dinner at Milones Restaurant
Life gets a bit crazy as we all love to dance and eat well. We are all living our best lives, and it’s wonderful that a few weeks of the year, we hang out together, enjoying our times in various places.
Life moves at such a quick pace these days. It’s so nice to be able to spend some time together savoring the life of travel and tango.
I feel as I am loved and very grateful to have such a wonderful and loving extended family.
