I’ve discovered a dancer I really like, Luca Ferrari of Napoli. I hope it’s alright with him if I post this video below from his youtube channel. It’s beautiful and reminds me so much of dancing in Italy. Ahhh, the Mediterranean Sea behind them…

I miss all of my Tango friends in Perugia!! I miss driving to Rome all’improvviso to dance at Milonga dei Serpenti. Maybe when I’m there in the spring, I’ll visit Napoli, which seems to have a nice Tango community.

Ok, that’s it.  I have my private lesson scheduled with Ney & Jennifer, and it will take place in 18 days from now.  Woo woo!

I’m excited to meet them, particularly Ney, for a couple of reasons.  One, their dancing is beautiful. Duh.  Two, Perugia.  

See, a while back, while still living in Italy, I had e-mailed Ney asking if he would add a link for Umbria’s tango community to his website.  He sent me a very nice response - and added the link to his page.
Coincidentally, just a couple of months later my friend Helaine, who started Umbria Tango, invited Ney and Jennifer to Perugia to perform at their Friday night milonga.  (They were already to be in the Capri Tango festival as well as Florence, so it seemed opportune.)  Naturally they went…

I’m just dying to know what they thought of Perugia and its ever so warm Tango community. 

Oh how happy I am to have received an e-mail from Miss Tango (she always hooks me up somehow) letting me know about this great blog in Italian, about Tango.  Sounds perfect for me…!  Looks like I’ll spend my Thursday night leggendo, reading, before I dance tonight.

I always get excited when people find something inspirational in Italy. It’s not hard to do of course, but anyway.

Here is a nicely written blog entry in which a Tanguera goes to a well-known milonga in Rome.

Last week I was taking a walk with some friends in Florence, and wondering if I was doing the right thing by going to Buenos Aires for a month. I thought outloud, “I hope I’m on the right path…” and as soon as I said it, I looked up and realized we were walking past an Argentine restaurant. I looked to my right, across the street, and saw an advertisement for a Tango show. Minutes later we were in a cocktail lounge and Tango music was playing for whatever reason. Okay Universe, got it. Thanks for the reminder.

I’ve been in Seattle for a couple of days now and I leave this Wednesday for Buenos Aires. I’m really missing Italy a lot already. It’s my home, my life. But my instincts are telling me that I’m going to be okay. I will always be a part of Italy, and Italy will always be a part of me.

My thinking is that I’m going to live part-time in Seattle, part-time in Italy, and thanks to mi amor being from BsAs, part-time there too. I’m getting the best of three worlds. And a great guy. How many people are fortunate enough to recognize blessings like that when they see them?

Last night at the milonga in Via della Viola here in Perugia, I was chatting away with Lucia, an adorable woman with a beautiful dance style who has gone to Buenos Aires a couple of times with her boyfriend (also a good dancer) by now.  We were chatting about different styles of tango and what we prefered, when she stopped, looked at me, and said,

“But Tina, I think you have a style that is very personal, all your own.  When the man holds you tight, you dance in his arms, tightly connected - but when he gives you space, you take it and use it.  I’ve never seen a woman here dance with such… equilibrium.” (Sorry guys, I’m trying to translate from Italian and it’s not coming across right.)

So, here’s to personal style!

I have begun my independent studying of the beautiful language of Spanish.  It’s rather fun, and very similar to Italian, but I find myself getting caught by false friends… for example: The verb “andare” in Italian, simply means “to go.”  In my Spanish dictionary I see that the word “andar” in Spanish, means “to walk.”  So I have to be careful and make sure I don’t use the word “andar” to describe how I’m getting to Buenos Aires from here, for example.  That would be an awfully long walk.

I called mi amor’s parents house (where he is staying) the other day, and his mother answered.  I decided I wanted to come across as friendly and interested in her (even though I do not speak Spanish yet) so instead of just asking for him like I usually do, I said “hola, (her name). Soy Tina… como estas?”  She said, “Aaaaaaaahhhh TINA!!!  HOLA!  Estoy bien, y vos?”  “bien, bien, gracias…”  Then I asked in a mixture of Italian and Spanish if mi amor was there and could I speak with him, and she luckily understood me and said yes, she’d go get him, and before letting me talk to him she said, “besito Tina, chau chau”.   I said “besito” back and she handed the phone to him.  Now, someone who speaks Spanish might read this and think “Tina, you’re lame. There is nothing to get excited about here because everybody already knows how to say ‘how are you’ and stupid stuff like that.  Gawwwd.”  But for me it was a big accomplishment because I’m very shy about calling people on the phone even in my own language, let alone somebody else’s language.  I once spent two hours trying to get up the courage to call there, and sighed with relief when he answered instead of his mom.

The parent factor seems to be working out in my favor, as far as I’m seeing.  His mother is of Italian descent but has never been to Italy.   I think she’s always had an interest in the bel paese where her parents were born.  It’s just that it’s not that easy to get up the money to get out of Argentina, and I think she’d miss her children and grandchildren too much.  This is my guess anyway.  When he told her that he wants to live here for a few months and learn Italian, she was extremely pleased.  She seems to be fascinated with Italy, and therefore very curious about me.  She knows that I, too, am of Italian descent, and seems curious to know my history and my experience here in Umbria.  So that scores a few points for me, I’d like to think.

His father, the other day, asked him why I didn’t just come to Buenos Aires right now so we could all go to the beach together for a couple of weeks.  His whole family is talking about me, and apparently everybody is waiting to meet the mysterious Tina girl who lives in Italy.  I’ve been warned that I will be fed a lot.  To that I respond, “okay. :)”

This puts the pressure on to study my Spanish.  I’m writing e-mails in Spanish now to mi amor, and he writes back with his corrections.  I do pretty well actually, since gramatically it’s a lot like Italian, and a lot of the verbs have the same stems.  My trouble is more in the spelling, and basic nouns or adjectives that are certainly different.  Pronouns are tough too.  My Spanish grammar book is from Spain, so is useless in Argentina when it comes to pronouns.  So I had to ask mi amor teach me how to conjugate verbs using the Rioplatense pronouns, yo, vos, el/ella, nosotros, ustedes, ellos…

This is going to be one interesting ride… but very fun indeed.

Funny what happens when you listen to your heart. My heart took me here, to Italy where I’m currently living. And now that I’ve established myself here, my heart turned right around and decided it should take me to Buenos Aires for a while instead. That’s fine. I’ve been dancing tango for four years now and I always felt guilty when people would ask me “Have you been to Buenos Aires yet?” and I said, head down, “no…”

So yesterday while visiting a friend up in Firenze, being the language-obsessed individual that I am, I bought three books: an Italian-to-Spanish dictionary, a Spanish grammar book (for Italians), and a book that I’m already in love with, “Buenos Aires, Tango a Parte” which is an Italian “guide” to Buenos Aires. It’s not a tourist book at all. It’s a beautifully written book with stories and secrets and history and, sure, a few hot tips. You could call it a travel book dedicated to what would bring pleasure to an Italian traveler.

Why all the Italian stuff? Well, apart from it being my second language, living in Italy I don’t have much else to choose from. Also, I’ve tried studying Spanish from an English-speakers point of view and it bored the heck out of me because I’m already well-versed in Latin-rooted languages. So I find that I have a much better time approaching it from an Italian point of view. One book I really want to get, is another one in Italian, about how to avoid the common mistakes and false friends that Italians tend to encounter when learning Spanish. My Spanish tutor will be mi amor, who is already down there visiting his family and waiting for me to get there. He’s making it his mission to condition my Spanish to be Argentine, so I’m already finding myself using “vos” instead of “tu” when trying to conjugate verbs.  (Did I mention that conjugating verbs is one of my favorite pasttimes?  Really.  It is.)

I really need to learn some Spanish since his family speaks no English, and I want to communicate with them, naturally. I’ve already spoken with his mother on the phone, and to be honest it was a lot of fun and it went really well. It was very short, but I mustered up what Spanish I knew, peppered it with Italian, and she went with it, and came across as a very sweet person. I’m excited to meet her. I’m slightly nervous as apparently several his relatives are very curious about who I am.

I’m excited and ready to get down to Buenos Aires. I find the tango scene here in Perugia is just not enough for me, as it is very small and there aren’t very many milongueros. That doesn’t mean I don’t love dancing here - I do very much, and these people have all become my friends. (And can I just say that on Wednesday night my footwork just totally rocked? Meow!) But, it’s just not the same as when I lived in Seattle. Seattle has a larger tango community for one thing, more milongueros, and an Argentine restaurant at which I have been known to perform at times (filling in for another girl). Anyway, I’m ready for my dancing to improve. I’m ready to have a summer. I’m ready to be with the man I love. I’m ready to eat very well at his mother’s house. I’m ready. Buenos Aires, here I come!