Sand Sculptures and Murals

Well the art here on Vancouver Island just keeps on comin' so I shall keep on posting.

These are professional quality sand sculptures on Qualicum Beach. It is a contest, of course. Then they spray the sculptures with water based glue so they will last for a few weeks. Very cool. They are at the beach but not on the beach so waves won't wash them away.
 Oh- and I added one beach shot because the beach is kind of amazing. Very very wide beach on an estuary so the water is very shallow. You can walk a quarter of a mile our and still be up to your ankles. And if you look in the distance you can see steep mountains on the mainland of British Columbia- with snow and glaciers showing. Very dramatic.

There are two in this photo- one in the foreground, one in the background

The theme of this one is kids playing in cardboard boxes. 

These two pictures are part of the same sculpture. The
first is three men sitting around eating chicken wings.
This section above is two chickens without wings
begging for spare change. They have sand bandaids
where their wings should be. 

And here are some murals from Chermanis, Vancouver Island, a small town that reinvented itself (after the lumber business faded in importance) as an arty community with lots of historical murals.

Welcome to Buenos Aires

Hi,

Sometimes when I travel overseas I get blocked out of my blog and this is one of those times. Nevertheless I thought a few of my tango buddies  might be interested in hearing about our tango experiences in Buenos Aires. As always with my blog you can let me know if you don't care to receive these emails.

We spent the first two nights in a tango house. This was a nice looking three story house that had been converted into a small hotel. We had access to the kitchen and the living room and also a large room with wooden dance floor room for practicing. They also hosted some tango practica or lesson daily. We stayed for two nights.We had planned to stay longer but it wasn't as interesting or pleasant as we had hoped. Still,the first day had some positive features- we were tired (our plane arrived at 5 AM) but we still wanted to dance. So instead of going to a milonga or practica the practica came to us, downstairs in the practice room. 

I managed to learn a nice little embellishment in the practica and also learned an important rule of the Buenos Aires tango scene; be careful who you ask for advice. Not everybody's dancing preferences are the same. In this case the recommendation to stay at this tango house came from a 30 something dancer and teacher in Portland and this tango house was perfect for her needs but not so perfect for us seniors. The practical was titled something like " brave women who like to lead"  and everyone there was young, female and a really good dancer. I do enjoy dancing with ladies so I had a good time at the practica and it was reassuring to see that I could hold my own with all these good dancers. But in general I prefer dancing with more age appropriate people. Still, it was good for the first night without having to go out when we were tired.

Later that evening there was also a lesson  with a well known dancer but that did not work out well for me. I was the only person that the lesson who was not fluent in Spanish. Now I happen to know this teacher because he taught in Seattle over the summer and I know he speaks English but  he chose not to translate one word, so I left. I thought that inappropriate  considering he was teaching in a house populated with international tango tourists rather than  his own studio.

I started this trip with the desire to dance with older milongeros rather than the international dance community. I am now revising that thought but more about that later as  dance more. I also wanted to dance in the afternoons rather than late at night. Thus the  next afternoon we danced at two matinee (afternoon) milongas, Nuevo Chique and Obilisco Tango. I like a traditional setup with men on one side of the room and women on the other.  These were both an older crowd of non intimidating friendly dancers. So that was a good start for our first day out. We danced, and after early dinner we went to the second older, local traditional style  milonga at Obilisco. 

There I made one of those milonga faux pas; I saw Franklin smiling in my direction  assumed it was a cabeseo so for me but actually it was for someone near me. I should have waited until he crossed the room. I usually do that but it was my own husband so I took it for granted he was coming for me. Oh well. Live and learn.  

The next day we again went to a local traditional milonga, this time in the evening- Sueno Porteno at Club Gricel. We had quite a good time at a Sueno Porteno dance on our last visit but this time not so much. Club Gricel is a lovely old room but the seating is difficult to get a cabesceo with long tables perpendicular to the floor and mixed seating.  Indeed I never got one cabesceo. The only dances I had were verbal invitations. It was also largely a local crowd of regulars.  I did not have a good time and will not go back, even on more touristy nights. I doubt they change the table arrangement and the cabesceo problem will be the same.

Our next afternoon we tried yet one more traditional milonga at El Arranque. This was also mixed seating and by this time I was getting tired of the tight rib crushing embrace of these older milongaros. Franklin says that a lot of women were heavy followers so I guess they reinforce each other. The dancing at all three of these events was ok but very simple tango, not at all challenging. The fact was that I seemed to be one of the better dancers at these milongas. While that was an unexpected and  pleasant surprise, I was now ready for more challenging dancing. So we walked over to El Beso for their Lujos Thursday night dance. 

El Beso years ago is where I learned tango with Oscar Casas. Learning tango was actually an accident for us. We never intended to learn tango or  become addicted. We came to BsAs six years ago as tourists and decided rather than touring the country as we had planned, we would rent a condo for a month and learn to dance. I do not recommend learning to dance as a beginner in BsAs but it just happened that that was what we did. So I was a little nervous about coming back to El Beso as a more experienced dancer wondering how I would stack up as a dancer. But we both had a wonderful time and I thought my dancing was just fine. Maybe even better than fine. Even with the difficult seating. It is a popular venue and as a newbie I was placed in the third row behind taller women (I knew about this in advance but hope in future visits they will recognize me I will get better seating.). It was ok before it got crowded but we left when more people arrived and I could not see to get a cabesceo. 

The highlight of the evening was my last dance. It was an older gentleman somewhere in his late 70s. His hands were cold which meant he had not danced previously that evening and I was regretting having  accepted his cabesceo. He started off with very tiny steps even though the floor was not extremely crowded and once again I was regretting my choice. I had violated one of the major BsAs milonga rules: Only accept an invitation to dance for someone you have observed dancing. Well. Without going into great detail let me say that I spent the tanda in  tango bliss. I have no idea who I was dancing with. Certainly someone with very subtle delicious moves. Yum. 

We are in a nice neighborhood not far from La Viruta (which we have not yet visited- I have to adjust my time to dance that late and am working on it day by day). There are several small milongas or practices in our neighborhood so we walked over to one later in the evening. It was a great idea- a small local practica for people in the neighborhood. There were only three of four couples dancing and we did not go in but I loved the idea of dancing with your partner in the neighborhood.. Don't you? 

I hope you enjoyed hearing about our experiences. Again let me know if you don't want to receive these emails. I assume I will sent another  when I have more to say.