Jetlag? What Jetlag?

A (mostly sleepless) red eye to Buenos Aires means you take care of details (get through airport formalities, get to town, find your apartment, have your first argument (with the doorman/manager, who insists everyone knows he's not supposed to be bothered before afternoon on Sundays), stop in at the cafe around the corner for coffee, take a short nap, stop in at the cafe around the other corner for a bite to eat, figure out the subway...) and still land at your first milonga before your first day is out.  Nothing beats jetlag like ignoring the clock.

It's La Milonguita, in the Colegiales neighborhood.  Here's what becomes clear pretty quickly, at this milonga, and as we visit others through the week:

• It's Sunday night, and it's more of a neighborhood milonga than others, so it's full of locals having a night out rather than visitors;
• In some milongas, usually the more neighborhoody ones, people who come as couples generally dance only with their partners, in others everyone who shows interest can be asked to dance;
• Milongas differ because of location, the kind of crowd they attract, etc.
• It's Sunday night, and it's still early-ish, so it's packed.

The dance floor is so full that it seems unlikely that what is clearly happening--perfectly pleasant and orderly dancing--should be happening.  How so?  Because of three things:

1. People dance to the beat and sense of the music.  As a result the whole floor undulates and flows smoothly and evenly (if slowly).  You're not going anywhere fast, yet you're never stuck behind anyone.
2. Denied space, one is forced to structure a dance of interest and grace out of the little room one has.  A tiny step and shift to the music is all you need.  It's all you have. 
3. No shenanigans*. You dance for yourself and your partner, not for the audience.  Yet in the process, and with the other dancers around you, you create a spectacle that's lovely and mesmerizing to watch.  Go figure.

We jump right in and have a ball.

As we get into the week we'll see that the demographic will shift: most of the locals out social dancing during the weekend are staying home; they have to get up and go to work tomorrow.  The milongas (fewer during the week, only around 15 a night compared to more like 25 on weekends) are still packed, but in addition to the die hard social dancing locals there are more visitors (more women than men) and more locals drawn by the tourist trade (dancers hired by visitors, "teachers" looking for trade, dudes looking for willing tourists...)  By midnight plus the crowd thins out a bit and there's more room for your dance.

Of course these impressions are drawn from the milongas we visited.  We avoid certain ones and have yet to visit others.

Melody, dancing to D'Arienzo at El Beso with some Argentinian dude.  By now it's close to 3am so there's more room.  Yet note that everyone still enjoys dancing small, and how the floor has a rhythm, since everyone's dancing to the beat and the music (the same beat and music, by the way.)  As a result, no floorcraft issues here, everyone's pretty much blissed out, and whoever is sitting out has something beautiful to watch.

With one exception we visit a milonga a night, sometimes two:  La Milonguita, Gricel, Sueno Porteno, La Cachila, La Ideal, El Beso, La Glorieta.  Typically we sail in around 10-11, leave when they close somewhere around 2-4.  We're having great dances, and a great time.

One night, for a number of reasons we don't go to a milonga.  We make it an early night, go to bed by 1 or so.  Big mistake.  Denied dance induced exhaustion, we discover for the first night in several that our bed is lumpy, our cheap apartment too noisy, the street outside too busy.  There's a strange Twilight Zone, theramin-like whine from some pipe or high voltage cable or UFO parked on a nearby roof.  Sounds like a broken oboe, or a saw, or someone sawing a broken oboe.  We toss, we turn, we don't sleep.

Winkless, we vow to go danceless nevermore.

* Show steps, e.g. ganchos, boleos, --adas...