Winter time

We´re switching to winter time! I have never quite understood why some people complain about these changes – I myself always regret the one hour we loose in the spring, but getting an extra hour of life, to sleep – or to tango – in the autumn is such a treat! I suppose that what intrigues me most about the whole business of winter/summer time is that ´the authorities´, so to speak, officially award the public an extra hour of life – or take one away; I find the notion absolutely sensational. It gives me the impression that time doesn´t, after all, flow as ruthlessly as we have learnt to accept, that it is a fluid medium which we can actually modify, by simply deciding to do so...I mean, imagine the possibilities! Also, I have just found out (gathering all kind of fancy information about Buenos Aires for my trip there in winter) that Argentina does not observe daylight saving time – and so no extra hour to dance for the Argentine milongueros and milongueras this weekend... how unfair!

I must admit with regret though that this year, I used my extra hour to sleep...I really needed it. Have had several long evenings lately, and what with the winter approaching and the cold outside, the mornings are so bleak I would just abolish them and sleep until noon (which looks just as bleak, I am afraid). My only consolation is that I will be spending the month of February in Buenos Aires and will thus cheat the year of one extra month of summer:))) – the trick of switching hemispheres is even better than the one with summer/winter time, I must say.

Anyway, some of those long evenings were due to my celebrating my birthday, so I ought not complain:) On the eve of my birthday I went to the milonga. Didn´t mean to celebrate, but somehow the news leaked out and I got the traditional solo dance with men cutting in on each other. It was fun, really. My perhaps all-time favourite dancer also came to the milonga, but he was tired and spent the evening sitting in a corner chatting with friends. However, before the last tanda he put on his dancing shoes – and invited me to dance! It was the perfect ending of an evening, and, though not meant that way, a wonderful birthday gift:)

In any case, what I am looking forward to most in Argentina is that the water going down the drain will be swirling clockwise. Imagine just how thrilling it will be to brush my teeth in the morning and watch the water swirl in the opposite direction than the one I have been seeing all my life! To me, that is nothing short of a miracle:)