The Codigo Violation Competition

We're going to write this on the fly because we want to beat Bob and Viv to it.

Today was supposed to be a fairly relaxing day - we could do some shopping, walk around, and attend Martha and Manolo's performance at Salon Canning late at night.  Until we scrapped our plans to relax and shop and went to El Arranque instead.

We made impromptu plans to see Bob and Viv there and headed out around 3 p.m.  You see, we still had not settled "Most/Least Favourite Tango Blogger" controversy with either fisticuffs or octagon deathmatch at Glorias Argentinas last Saturday, so we were all roaring for another round.

Just kidding.  Bob and Viv are really two of the nicest sweetest people in the tango blogverse and we cried all night when they left without asking us to dance at Glorias.  We met at El Arranque and had a lovely chat, a nice dance - and then the fun began because all of us, including the locals, decided to embark a Codigo Violation Competition.  Heck, why not, we weren't in the company of any Codigo Police so we wanted to try how far we could take it before we got kicked out of the milonga.

Here's how the tally stood at 7:00 p.m.:


Number of pairs of shoes changed under the table - SIX (We - and you have to guess which ones of us - changed when we got there, we changed when we left, so it doubles up)

Number of shirts changed right at the table - ONE, but it happened twice, once when we got there, and once when we left

Number of times wives were asked to dance without permission of their husbands - TWO

Number of ganchos on a crowded floor - AT LEAST FOUR

Number of times people danced without using their arms - HALF A VALS

Number of times people filmed other people without permission of the milonga organizer and got threatened by the waiter - ONCE

Number of times people started teaching on the dance floor - TWICE

Number of times people talked through the most of the tanda while dancing - ONCE

Number of times people ran right across the dance floor - SIX AND A HALF, six by locals who came over to say hello and half from us because we got stopped midway by a milonguero who wanted to invite me to dance (but strangely enough within the ambit of this competition, with permission of Man Yung)

Number of times people went against the line of dance - MANY, but it all involved the same milonguero within the same tanda

Number of Pugliese tandas danced and ecstatically enjoyed - ONE, and the whole crowd who made it to the dance floor loved it (Dany Borelli's music)

Number of women dancing with other women - NONE, although Viv and I had experienced this first hand before at at milongas and could compare notes

Despite all this, none of us were kicked out - and in fact, although we were expecting all the locals to hate us and give us the evil eye, the tally of evil eyes was surprisingly ZERO and the tally for the positive reactions from the locals were as follows:

Emails exchanged -TWO

Total strangers who came over to kiss and say hello - at least TWELVE

Locals who came over to invite us to dance -  EIGHT, but counting Bob and Viv because they have their own place here and are now as local as the locals

People we just made friends with and whom kissed us goodbye - MANY, and those who were too far off got air kisses and waves from us.  Because otherwise we would have to spend at least 10 minutes getting out of there.