Don't cry for me Argentina.....Part Dos

On the 3rd day of the symposium, the organizers arranged a dinner and tango show for us. Would have loved to bring Mi Madre along but since she was a last minute thing, they couldn't accommodate her. Anyway, on that day, I was feeling exceptionally sleepy (normally for me drowsiness kicks in during the after lunch/late evening sessions, i.e around 4pm but this time I couldn't keep my eyes open since the morning session!) and having to sit through the entire day felt like torture. So the minute it was over at 6pm, I rushed back to the hotel hoping to get some rest (we were told to gather back at the centre at 7pm as the bus taking us to the dinner would be leaving at 7.30pm). I must have been freaking tired (prolly still jet lagged) coz the moment I reached my room, I collapsed on the bed face first and went into a comma.

When I came out of the comma, it was 7.20pm and I started to panic. I decided against changing my clothes and washing my face (coz God knows that would take more time than I actually have!), grabbed my handbag and left the room (yes, I didn't even comb my hair let alone look at myself in the mirror). While reaching out to press the elevator button, I suddenly realized that I had marks/imprints on my hands and arms. Saying a silent prayer ("please God, don't let me see what I think it is...please"), I turned to look at my face in the elevator mirror. OH MY GOD I HAD FREAKING TYRE TRACKS ON MY FACE!!! I rubbed the sides of my face so hard hoping it would go away. When that didn't work, I thought "Screw the dinner.I'll just miss it" but then I didn't want to regret not going and hearing from people the next day about how they enjoyed it so I decided to hell with it! I kept my head lowered and covered both sides of my face with my hands (think Macaulay Culkin's classic Home Alone pose) and walked down the street as fast as I could to the waiting bus (thank God my hotel is about a minute away from the centre or else I wouldn't have made it in time). I even put on a serious face hoping that people might think,"Wow, she must be thinking really hard and worried about something!"

Yeah, exactly how I felt, except replace that with a frown.

Thought I got away with it but my Malaysian colleague laughed upon seeing me and then he assured me that the lines would disappear by the time we reach the dinner place. Thank God he was right!

The stage for the Tango show

We arrived at the restaurant around 8ish and was served a 3 course dinner first. Thank God they had options for vegetarians (and I'm not just talking about boring salad) so I had some tomato onion tart thingy for the appetizer, shrimp ravioli as the main course and pistachio creme brulee for dessert. Took the time to practice using Cammie for dark indoor/ low light shots so that I would be able to take good pics during the Tango performance.

Practice shot of my appetizer. Too orange

Practice shot of my main meal. Too bright

Practice shot of my dessert. Guess this'll hafta do (got tired and bored by now)

Dinner ended around 10ish and then the Tango show started. It was 1 1/2 hours of watching Tango but in different forms/themes (not just the stereotypical Tango we see on TV where the couple hold hands with their arms stretched out and dance across the room and then switch direction). My favourite one was a Romeo & Juliet like theme (at least that's how I chose to interpret the dance) where the girl was on the balcony and she gracefully came down from it into the arms of the guy. The stage was big enough to fit 5 couples at one time. The top part of the stage had a platform to fit in the live orchestra. No thanks to Mi Amor, everytime I see the male dancers on stage, I can practically hear him asking, "Out of the 5 male dancers, how many do you think are straight?" :P

So how many do you think Mi Amor?

The dying scene from the Romeo and Juliet inspired piece

I purposely made this pic bigger so that you can check out the arms of the guy on the right....heh :D

Best pic of the night

Bravo!

Even though the show was entertaining, to tell you the truth, there's only so much of Tango I can take before getting bored (plus it didn't help that none of the male Tango dancers were good looking) . It was a good thing I managed to get some sleep before attending the dinner because I was fully awake during the whole show (unlike my other Malaysian colleagues who were close to falling asleep). By the time I got back to the hotel it was close to 1am. Mi Madre was fast asleep so I got ready for bed and channel surfed hoping to find some interesting reality show to watch..heh (and no, I couldn't find any, dammit!). Finally bid buenos noches to Buenos Aires around 3am.



p/s....I know I said I didn't do much in BsAs but there's still a Part III coming up (when I finally get to it, hopefully sometime this week!) and perhaps a part IV and V (depending on how rajin I am and how many pics I want to put up) so bare with me.