We have two recent projects to share that brought some much needed new life to a set of chairs and a dresser. These projects also brought some much needed color to the many shades of brown we had going on in our living and dining rooms!
We’ll start with the chairs. Â We inherited a set of chairs from a family friend, and immediately saw the potential in them. While they had scuff marks galore, paint stains, and a few other indescribable sticky substances, we liked the mission-style backs and were very excited to have chairs with cushions. Even if those cushions are in desperate need of recovering! Without further ado, here is what we started with:
The first step for our chair makeovers was to clean them up real good. Nancy found a great blog (that maybe she will be so kind to post, because I can’t find it!) that described how to paint furniture beautifully without having to sand it at all. Score! So we used TSP (trisodium phosphate, available at any cleaning or hardware store) and scrubbed to our hearts content. Lucky for us, we found an old paint sprayer lurking around the property and it worked wonderfully. So we spray-primed the chairs after cleaning, then spray-painted coat #1, let the chairs dry overnight, and spray-painted coat #2.
We painted the chairs (and the dresser) a charcoal grey to give the front rooms of our house a little contrast. The color turned out to have more blue tones than we originally thought, but we really like how everything turned out! Once the chairs had dried, we chose a fabric from Nancy’s stash. I think the fabric we chose brought out the blue tones in the paint, but it has blues, greens, and reds, so we thought it would be a good base to match anything to.
We popped the seats off the chairs and removed the hundreds of staples holding the fabric together. This took quite a bit more time than we anticipated, so we recruited a few extra hands to help with the process! I don’t think Apsen helped much, but she sure is cute 🙂
With the chair seats recovered, we reassembled the chairs and brought them back into the house. And look how beautiful they are!!!
And here’s some before and after photos, just for the perspective:
The dresser is a piece of furniture that we’ve had for quite a few years, but have never really been enamored with. It’s very well built, but it was always hard for us to see past the gold… but now that we have room to paint, we decided that this also needed new life! The dresser actually belonged to my great grandma, so it has seen a lot of life and we were very excited to make it seem like new again.
Painting the dresser involved the same process as painting the chairs. We had to bust out the steel wool between coats 1 and 2 for the top of the dresser, to make sure we got a nice smooth finish. We thought about buying new hardware for the dresser, but that didn’t really work out. Because the dresser is quite old, buying draw pulls that would fit this dresser was going to be absurdly expensive. So we went with our backup plan and painted those suckers! And they do look much, much better.
We decided to move the dresser out of the guest room and into the dining room. It’s the perfect place to store napkins, placemats, candles; all those fun things that don’t really have a home unless you have storage in the dining room. And now we do!
So here are some more lovely before and after photos:
Moving weekend was a whirlwind of activity, as usual! We took on quite a few projects other than moving, including:
- packing up our apartment
- painting the walls and ceilings of every room in our house
- cleaning the house (after painting)
- installing a garbage disposal
- installing new kitchen lights
- moving in
I’m sure I’m missing a few things, but that covers the big bases. Needless to say, it was a very busy weekend, and we could not have accomplished everything without help from all four of our parents! We are so lucky to have such great parents; honestly, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a better bunch than Mike, Debbie, Dirk, and Nancy 🙂
So, moving. Moving out is probably one of my least favorite activities, so no pictures of that and we’ll just gloss right over it. Moving in, however, is so excited! It’s like starting over; you can decide exactly how you want your house to be set up. We packed all of our belongings from our apartment into two truckloads and made it to Campbell just before it started raining!
I don’t have very many action photos from the weekend projects, but I do have some before and after photos of the rooms in the house. With freshly painted walls, gorgeous hardwood floors, and our furniture, it’s definitely starting to take shape. I know, there are still a few boxes that need to be unpacked, some more organization needed, and some bare walls in need of art, but we’re getting there.
It’s funny; the paint color doesn’t really look that different in the photos. But trust me, it looks SO MUCH better in person! The Porter sign (sitting on the floor to the left of the fireplace) will be hung over the fireplace eventually.
It’s amazing what new lights, a coat of paint, and some cleaning will do to a room. I love these lights!
So much better now. And I’m loving the green paint in the kitchen!
Bedroom #1 has become our office, with his and hers desks.
Bedroom #2 has become our bedroom.
Bedroom #3 has become our guest room / staging room while we continue to unpack and move in. Come visit us!
Welcome to our home!
While the boys were busy inside the house sanding, vacuuming, and finishing the floors, the girls were outside, weeding. I wish I could say we did more, but the majority of our weekend was spent attacking the various overgrown areas in the front yard. I’m not just talking about little annoying weeds here: I’m talking waist-high (okay, maybe just knee-high) weed bushes. And they did not go willingly!
Sadly, I don’t have a before picture of the weed patch. We were just too excited to get in there that it didn’t occur to me to take any photos (I’ll get better, I promise!). But just think, this nice pile of dirt you see was a weed infested nightmare a few hours before:
The post-weeding front yard. See all the garbage bags and the big green garbage can? All FULL of weeds!
The post-weeding front yard left us with a mulberry tree and one plant. To try to keep the weeds at bay (who knew if we got them all?), we spread weed cloth over the dirt, and covered everything up with some redwood bark. This is a temporary fix to the front yard, until we figure out what else to do with it. But at least know when we come home, we don’t have the eyesore weed patch! Now, we have this:
Redwood bark = way better than weeds!
On the far side of our brick semi-circle driveway, Chels and Kimmi went to town on more weeds. I think they are having way too much fun…
Look at those sisters. How did I get so lucky to be related to these two?!
Here is what we did with the planter just off the front porch: pulled up all the plants, planted some salvaged plants from our weeding extravaganza, and covered it all with redwood bark. We really like that stuff 🙂
Watering the new and improved planters
And then there is Kirbie… our fearless cheerleader.
Kirbs found a “soft” spot to watch the activities from
End result: front yard tackled, for now. There is still more work and more planning to be done, but for now it looks good enough for us!
Front porch: check!
If you remember from the last post, the flooring in our new home left a lot to the imagination. If you don’t remember, here’s a picture of the carpet in the living room:
Apparently, I didn’t take very good pictures of the carpet before we ripped it out… I’m learning very quickly that I need to get better about taking “before” and “after” pictures from the same vantage point. Live and learn!
We were pretty sure there were hardwood floors under all of the gross carpet. In one of the bedrooms, the carpet had been taken out and the hardwood floor could be seen. We took a gamble and assumed the hardwood floors continued throughout the house, and that they would be in good enough shape to fix up. Even if we discovered they weren’t, the carpet had to go! So Justin and my dad put on their dust masks and started ripping and peeling back the carpet. The rest of us (my mom, sisters, and me) stood outside and waited, seeing as none of us wanted to have a horrendous allergy attack. Good thing the allergy-prone people stayed away: underneath the carpet was a horse-hair carpet pad! If that doesn’t tell you how old this carpet was, I don’t know what would…
We assessed the condition of the floors, and, with the exception of some stains, decided that they were indeed good enough to fix! This is what the floors looked like right after the carpet had been removed:
I know the lighting is different and the vantage point is different, but give me a break: you can tell these floors have potential! Here’s an up close picture of arguably the worst stain on the floor:
After we decided to attempt to beautify the floors, Justin and I went back to work for the week and my dad and papa went to work on the floors. They replaced stained boards, patched holes and cracks in the existing floor, then sanded the fixed areas back down. They worked so hard, and it made such a big difference! This is what the floors looked like after their hard work:
During our week back at work, Justin had figured out how to sand and stain the floors to perfection, and ran around getting all the equipment. After the floors were all prepped and the plan worked out, Justin, my dad, and our good friend Lucas went to town sanding the floors. As a side note, our good friend Lucas was visiting us from New Zealand. And we put him to work sanding our floors all weekend. Poor guy… talk about a good friend!
Justin, Lucas, and Mike: the floor magicians!
 
After two grueling days of sanding and vacuuming, our floors really started to look wonderful. Here’s the living room all sanded down, just before the first coat of finish:
So pretty! Then the first coat of finish went on, and it looked even better. I love that you can see which parts of the floor have been stained in these pictures, as the boys move their way across the floor.
Such a big difference from start to finish. After the long flooring weekend, Justin and I once again went back to work and my dad continued to work on the floors. He made sure the house was warm enough so the finish would dry, and applied multiple coats throughout the week. And this is the final product:
Here’s a compilation of all the photos to show the progress, all in one place. The difference is amazing, and all the hard work was so worth it! We love our floors so much that we can’t imagine putting any rugs in our house. Who would want to cover this up?!
I should also mention, that everyone who has worked on the floors or spent any appreciable amount of time in our house has a “favorite board”. Yes, that’s how cool our floor is: there is so much variety in the boards that we have favorites!
On another side note, you’re probably thinking to yourself: “Gee, Justin, Mike, and Lucas worked really hard on the floors this weekend. What the heck were the girls doing?” Don’t you worry. We had tackled another project: the weed patch, also known as the front yard. More on that later…
Sorry for the lag in blog posts… Justin and I have been home from Argentina for about two weeks, and we have so much to report back on! Since we’ve returned home from our wonderful trip, we’ve officially become homeowners and I’ve landed a new, awesome job. Needless to say, we’ve been too busy to write anything!
I’ll start with the house. We started negotiations to buy our home in early November, and for us the process was far from typical. The important thing to remember is that the house is ours, and it has a lot of potential… so don’t jude too quickly when you see the “before” pictures! Because we bought the house “as is”, the first project was to remove the existing furniture. It’s kind of fun to see the house exactly as it was when we bought it, because it’s really come a long way. Take particular notice of the navy blue carpet, the incessant amount of shelving, and the odd shades of paint… lovely…
The living room, seen from the kitchen
The kitchen and hallway, seen from the front door. There are three bedroom and one bathroom off the hallway. Notice the florescent lights in the kitchen…
Bedroom #1, with lots and lots of built in shelving
Another angle of bedroom #1, with more shelving
Bedroom #2
Bedroom #3
Tiny, awkward bathroom off bedroom #3
The main bathroom, off the hallway. Such beautiful tile… and wooden toilet….
The kitchen, seen from the hallway. Lots of potential, in need of some serious love!
This is an addition that was built onto the house as a “covered porch”. It was used for storage, and will have to eventually come down. The window on the left side looks into the kitchen, the door in the center goes into the garage. We have come to call this place the “west wing”, even though it’s not really on the west side of the house. It just kind of stuck!
The west wing, looking out to the backyard.
Looking out the sliding door from the west wing to the backyard.
The shop (yes, the 1,000 square foot shop) is on the left, the back of the house on the right. The yard needs some serious help!
The shop is on the left with more covered space off the shop.
The back of the house with a big, messy, shade-providing black walnut tree
The back of the house and the garden shed. Because you can’t keep garden tools in the garage. Or the west wing. Or the shop. That will definitely be coming down!
The house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There is a two car garage, a 1,000 square foot shop behind the house, and lots of storage and space. The house is on a quarter-acre lot, so there are lots and lots of projects to be done! Anyone that wants to help, feel free to come lend a hand 🙂
I’ll post more blogs throughout the week with pictures of the projects we’ve done recently and what the house looks like now that we’ve (mostly) moved in. Think of this as a teaser, and I promise it looks way better now! Still a long way to go, but way better!
Our last night and our last day of the trip were spent in the sleepy town of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. We thought it would be a nice, mellow way to spend our last day, and the city is only an hour from Buenos Aires, so it would be easy to get to the airport to catch our flight home.
Colonia was a major shipping town during the 1600s and 1700s, when Spain and Portugal were battling over land and water in South America. Due to it's proximity to Buenos Aires (just across the Rio Plata), Colonia became the major shipping hub whenever Spain shut down or monopolized the trade into and out of Buenos Aires. When the land grabbing came to an end and the bigger, better port in Buenos Aires became reliable and available, Colonia was more or less forgotten. The town retains a lot of the original structures, including the fort, the old pier, the city wall, old cobbled streets, and the lighthouse. The barrio historico has been deemed a world heritage site and many of these structures have been restored.
Colonia at sunset
We arrived to Colonia by bus and immediately set out to find a spot on the river to watch the sunset. Although Colonia is “just across the river” from Buenos Aires, you can see it is one hell of a river! Just to the right of the sunset, you can see some of the taller buildings in Buenos Aires (no, no… Not the island. Between the island and the sun… The buildings are there, I promise!).
We enjoyed the sunset, then found a place for dinner, our last of the trip. We settled in at a cafe that had candle-lit tables set up on the cobble stone streets, with views of the lighthouse and the river. Just as we finished dinner, the cockroaches came out. Yes, I'm totally serious. Nothing ruins the mood of a romantic candle-lit dinner in an old town like hundreds of cockroaches!! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but at least I wasn't as bad as the women at the nearby tables, screaming and near tears. Anyway, it was a good thing we were done eating!
Wine and candles. Happy girl before the roaches came out...
The next morning, with the cockroaches all retired to wherever they retire to, we began exploring town. We wandered through the cobblestone streets of the barrio historico, checked out the old pier, admired some public art at the Colonia cultural museum, climbed to the top of the lighthouse, and explored some old ruins and the restored city wall. This is where things got a little interesting. We found the city wall from the back side, and thought it would be fun to walk along the front of the wall, up to the door leading into the city. Well, the wall had been originally designed with a moat and a drawbridge, and the ledge we had been walking along ended about 10 feet short of the gate. We thought we could just hop down from the ledge (about four feet to the ground), and walk up to the gate. Hop we did; right into the mud. Yep, the moat still holds onto water a lot better than the surrounding landscape and we found out the hard way that it's almost always filled with a good inch or two of sticky, stinky mud. Good thing the river was nearby for a quick foot washing!
Public art at the old pier
At the top of the lighthouse
Inside the lighthouse, looking out
View from the lighthouse
The wall that ended in a muddy mess...
Cleaning up the muddy mess in a brown river. No, the irony is not lost!
On the drawbridge leading into the city
We had explored all of the barrio historico in a few hours, so we found an ice cream shop to cool ourselves down a little bit. And Justin was probably the happiest kid ever: pistachio flavored ice cream in Uruguay! His absolute favorite. I stuck to dulce de leche, and we both enjoyed our last ice creams!
Pistachio!!!
The ice cream excitement and all the exploring had worked up our appetites. We stopped at the Drugstore for lunch, sat outside on colorful chairs under colorful umbrellas on cobblestone streets while being serenaded. It was very picturesque, the food yummy, and the beer cold. We couldn't ask for more!
The Drugstore
We knew our time was up in Uruguay, because we pretty much had exact change in Uruguayan pesos for lunch. Not to mention we had to catch our ferry back to Buenos Aires. Thus started our trip home: a ferry from Colonia, Urugay, to Buenos Aires, Argentina (complete with a customs and immigration adventure), an hour and a half taxi ride to the Buenos Aires airport (that should have taken 30 minutes; thank you Friday night city traffic! Side note: we also had exact change in Argentine pesos for this ride… another sign it was time to go home), more customs and immigrations and lots of lines, a flight to Houston, a flight to San Francisco, and a ride to Campbell.
Really?? Yes, this is real life in Uruguay.
Home, sweet home! What a wonderfully amazing trip it has been 🙂
Those last two pictures are just for fun, from Colonia. I mean really, look at that dog! That can't be comfortable. Justin says he must have calloused gums. Hopefully you think this dog is as funny as we do!
Posted with BlogsyA trip to the beaches of Uruguay would not be complete without a day trip to Punta del Este. We had to see what all the fuss was about! We hoped on a three dollar, 45 minute bus ride up the coast and watched the high rises of Punta get closer and closer. We had heard stories of celebrity sightings, the beautiful yachts in the Punta harbor, the hand in the sand, and the waves of Playa Brava (sometimes worthy of a surfboard rental). We traveled to Punta to see what the fabled beach city had in store for us.
When we got off the bus, our first stop was (somewhat by accident) the Hand in the Sand. This sculpture was designed and created in the 1980s, and, as the winner of an art competition, remained as Punta's version of public art. The sculpture is literally a giant hand, complete with finger nails and knuckle wrinkles, emerging from the sand. A favorite photo op spot, we thought we would have to wait awhile to get a few good pictures. But as soon as we approached the hand, it was like the crowds parted to the let the crazy Americans through. Everyone disappeared for about three minutes, we snapped a bunch of pictures, and then the crowds returned. It was quite strange, but the hand, the white sand, and the beautiful blue sky do make for some nice photos!
Justin evaluated the waves at Playa Brava after our photo op and deemed them unsuitable for surfing, even though there were multiple surf lessons going on. We decided to wander around the city and its beaches before returning to Playa Brava for a lounging session (for Kay) and a body surfing session (for Justin).
We walked out to the end of the peninsula that Punta del Este inhabits. Think of the Uruguay coastline as your outstretched arm and hand. Now, stick your thumb out perpendicular to your arm/hand. Your thumb is Punta. It just sticks out there, and we walked all the way round the thumb! The beaches on the north side (where Playa Brava and the hand in the sand are) have a lot more wind and waves, while the beaches on the south side (where the yacht harbor is) are calm and hot.
The yacht harbor is pretty impressive. There are some very big, very clean, very expensive boats in Punta. And the high rises of the city make a nice backdrop! The local fisherman sold the day's catch in the yacht harbor, tossing fish guts and other unmentionables into the water for a few sea lions who had strayed from the local colony.
Our overall impression of Punta: it's nice, but… we don't get it. Granted, we didn't stay long enough to experience the famed nightlife, but we both liked the beaches at Piriapolis better. We didn't see any celebrities (not that we particularly cared or looked very hard). I guess we just had bigger hopes for Punta. We had a lot of fun and are glad we made the journey, but considering the cost of things in Punta, one day was enough for us!
Off to Uruguay! After spending most of our trip in Argentina, we left today to head to the beautiful beaches of Uruguay (and get another stamp in our passports). Uruguay is a much smaller, flatter, and somewhat more laid back version of Argentina. They smoke more cigarettes and drink more mate, spend more time lounging, and spend even less time rushing around (not that Argentines are in any type of rush). I'm not sure I've mentioned mate before, but it's an herbal tea that Argentines and Uruguayans drink constantly. We saw a lot of Argentines drinking mate, but nothing like in Uruguay… you know how to tell a tourist on a beach in Uruguay? They aren't drinking mate! No joke, it's everywhere.
An epic game of sunset bocce. They take bocce and mate very seriously in these parts!
The most famous destination in Uruguay is Punta del Este, a favorite beach spot for the rich, famous, and beautiful. Seeing as Punta del Este in the high season was more than slightly out of our budget, we headed to the smaller, cheaper beach town of Piriapolis, about 45 minutes south of Punta.
When we read about the different beach towns in Uruguay, we were drawn to Piriapolis because the town is backed by some of the tallest “mountains” in Uruguay. For anyone who has been to California, the Uruguayan mountains are more like very small hills. We took a chairlift to the top of the fourth tallest mountain in the country, with a whopping elevation of about 1,200 feet! But it was a beautiful perch to overlook the town and the beach and enjoy an ice cold beer.
There isn't really much to say about Piriapolis… the town itself is small, consisting of about 10 blocks separated from the beach by a rambla and a busy street. The street is lined with subpar restaurants, expensive beach shops, and ice cream parlors. The rambla is about 10 feet wide, dotted with park benches and steps down to the sand. Piriapolis was originally developed by a wealthy Argentine, Piria, in the 1930s, the first beach resort created in Uruguay for wealthy Argentines who were unhappy with their beaches. Piria built the Argentino Hotel, a massive structure that still exists and operates today, and the rest of Piriapolis grew up around the hotel.
Argentino Hotel
The rambla and the beach
We were both surprised at how busy (and noisy!) Piriapolis is. Not that it's a bad thing, it's actually quite entertaining, but we assumed that Punta's little brother would be pretty mellow. Not so! The beach was packed all day everyday. And I really mean all day: the sun doesn't set in Uruguay until about 9 pm, and there were always people still on the beach at sunset. The sunsets were beautiful! We watched the sun dip below the horizon every day.
These kids are watching a boy hula hoop. Apparently this phenomenon has not reach Uruguay?
Ice cold beer and great people watching
As for the previously mentioned noise, Uruguay (especially Piriapolis) is loud. There are no laws regarding noise controls or mufflers, resulting in hundreds of motorcycles without mufflers flying around town deafening anyone in a 2 mile radius. To add to this racket, there are trucks that drive around town blaring music and tonight's special deals at local restaurants and bars from speakers mounted to the top of said trucks. The good thing is, when you get down onto the beach, the waves drown out most of the noise.
Uruguay is famous in South America for its fresh fish. We took full advantage of this, and discovered Uruguay's other specialty: mussels. And the fish and the mussels are soooo tasty. It was a very nice change from the massive quantities of baked goods and beef that we have been consuming. No change in the wine consumption though!
Our last morning in Piriapolis, we decided to venture from the beach front and ramble along the rambla. We discovered, just on the far side of the beach, a series of fishing villages. These villages had makeshift peers, launch ramps, and boats that were hauled in and out of the water using an old tractor. It was a vast contrast to leave the bustling touristy beach town of Piriapolis, walk ten minutes, and discover a humble, quiet fishing village. This is the Uruguay that most tourists don't see, and we were thrilled to have seen it by accident!
See the tractor??
Fishing village with the high rises of Piriapolis in the background.
We definitely enjoyed the sun and the sand, and were happy to be enjoying the beach at the end of the trip!
Today we ventured away from our shady oasis in Palermo. What drew us away, you might ask? A street market in another Buenos Aires neighborhood, San Telmo. How did we get there, you might ask? We took the subway. Yeah, we're that cool. And we didn't even get robbed!
The subway ride to San Telmo was actually highly uneventful. We arrived in San Telmo and upon emerging to street level, we checked another item off our Buenos Aires bucket list: we saw Casa Rosada. This very large, “pink house” was made famous by Eva Peron, and made more famous later as the stage for Madonna's performance of Don't Cry for Me, Argentina in Evita. While it was impressive to see, it was scarred with graffiti and under construction (like many other things in Buenos Aires) and not nearly as pink as I expected. Casa Rosada was more of a dusty rose color, not the fiercely bright pink I had imagined.
Our next stop in San Telmo was to pick up Taryn, an old friend of Justin's. She's living in Buenos Aires for the next month, taking a Spanish course, after having traveled through South America for the last three months. Taryn led us the end of the market in San Telmo, where we found a bar and traded stories over a bottle of cold white wine. We were pleasantly surprised by an impromptu tango performance in the restaurant before we parted ways.
The San Telmo market is held every Sunday, and draws equal number of locals and tourists. Items sold at the market include a variety of antiques, handcrafted leather, unique jewelry, fresh food, and all sorts of dorky touristy things. About 12 blocks of Defensa (a street in San Telmo) are shut down for this weekly market, and the street is lined with vendors selling everything you can imagine. I'm glad we started at the “end” of the market and worked our way back to the subway. It would have been exhausting to walk Defensa twice!
We wandered, marveled at the variety of objects and the variety of craftsmanship, and bought a few things. For some reason, we haven't been very good at shopping on this trip. Today wasn't much different, but we did pick up a few things we really loved. For example, we bought an antique glass soda bottle made in Argentina (like the ones below).
We also found a man selling hand-made leather maps. Justin and I both have a soft spot for maps, and we thought this was the perfect piece of art to take home. Not to mention, when we purchased it, the man offered to write something on the map for us. So we asked him to write “The Porters, 2013” and he did it right on the spot. It was so great!
San Telmo is a great neighborhood, definitely a must-see. It has a lot of history, being one of the oldest areas of the city. It used to be one of the most affluent neighborhoods, but a small pox epidemic drove the wealthy north in the 1920s. Now, San Telmo is a favorite hangout for the artists and young hip crowd in Buenos Aires. It has a lot of personality and was a great place to hang out for the day.
When in Buenos Aires, the tango capitol of the world, one must go to a tango show. So we are told. I had actually forgotten about the prospect of a tango show until Justin asked me which night we should go… So, with the help of Trip Advisor and online discounts, we booked a tango show for Saturday night. Now, this isn't just any tango show. Included in the price of the tickets were taxis to and from the venue, a one-hour introduction to tango class, dinner, and the show. Yep, our tango adventure lasted about six hours!
When we arrived at Complejo Tango, we were crammed into a tiny dance studio with about 100 other tourists. We were pretty much the last ones to arrive, so the lesson started about 5 minutes after we got there. Our maestra was hilarious, and split us up into boys and girls to learn the basic tango steps. Because there were so many people in the tiny, steamy room, we couldn't all dance together. It was very entertaining to watch others learn to tango, and I'm sure people thought the same thing about us! But we made it through the lesson with lots of laughs and no injuries, and we had worked up an appetite in the process. By the end of the lesson, we knew how to do a very basic tango (notice that I did not say we were good at it…) and we had mastered our “tango faces”. This is the face you make when you do a tango pose; it's supposed to be a sexy, sultry, come-hither face, but it morphed into more of a blue steel / what's the smell / try really hard not to laugh face. Very entertaining. And we got certificates! I guess our masetra thought we were good enough to pass, despite my doubts.
Next on the agenda was dinner. We were herded from the dance studio into the tango hall. One of the reasons we booked this tango show was the size: only about 120 people can fit into the hall, so it's much smaller and more intimate than a lot of the stadium-style seating tango shows. We were shown to our table and thought, there must be a mistake: we didn't pay the extra money for the premium seats! We were seated at a table for two, literally at the foot of the stage. If we stuck our arms out too far or put our wine glasses to close to the stage, we could have lost some fingers or stained our good clothes! Apparently, there was no mistake, and we enjoyed dinner and the show from some of the best seats in the house.
Dinner was edible, but nothing remarkable, so I will spare you the details. The tango show, on the other hand, was definitely remarkable. There was a full band, two singers, three male and three female dancers. The tango show took us through the different eras of tango, from 1900 to the present, with different costumes, styles of dance, and music for each act. It was great! Each dancing act was separated by a musical number, and while entertaining, these were more filler. One number involved a very convincing drunk singer, and that was quite entertaining.
The tango was wonderful. The dancers so talented, and being so close to the stage made it a very memorable experience. I mean, we could smell the sweat! I know, kind of gross, but that's how close we were. We could also see the facial expressions clearly and enjoyed both the seriousness and the humor the dancers brought to the show. At one point, the dancers all went through the audience and picked people to dance the tango with! Our maestra (who was one of the performers in the show) made Justin get up and dance with her. Although his face was bright red, he had every step right and a big grin when he sat back down after the ordeal was over.
The tango show was probably the most quintessentially touristy thing we've done on this trip, but it was so much fun. Highly recommended: the dancers were great, the food was fine, the wine flowed, and the live music was the perfect accompaniment. And now, we can tango! Sort of…
The JustinKays Chronicles 
