Sacramento, Impressions

Yesterday I arrived in California's capital city. I'm here for the EDRA38 conference, 4 nights, one suitcase, one presentation to give. We dropped TH off at the Grand Sheraton Hotel, where the conf. is also being held, and then the driver continued on to my hotel. The Travelodge Downtown Sacramento. Needless to say, they are sure liberal when handing out hotel stars these days. I guess it takes 3 stars to wipe down filthy walls and change out cigarette burned blankets...in my non-smoking room (touché).

B had told me to do some dancing while here, so i did some pre-search online and found a couple of places (2 to be exact) for thursday events, and one of the them was within a mile of my hotel. It's called Tango by the River, and the website looked pretty promising! The other event was with some Luis "el Suave" guy, and in the suburbs (RED FLAG!).

Sacramento has this 1800s neighborhood near downtown and the river, which is called Old Sacramento. The entire area looks like a movie set, except the building are real, not just wooden fronts...like straight out the old west. It was a boom town around 1849 california gold rush, and prospector's came to this riverfront town to stock up on provisions, and a bit of rowdy behavior.

Tango by the River is located in an historic building in Old Sacramento, and website claims it was voted America's most beautiful tango salon. Jain and I walked down to the district looking for dinner, which we found at a Mexican terrace (ok food, no espectacular). I had my shoes in my bag, but was unsure how to stay for dancing when Jain wouldn't want to and would probably not want to walk back home alone. I felt it out, and it would have not been cool. But we peeked upstairs at the class that was going on, (pre-practica), and it looked normal, chilled-out, not too many people, not as spectacular as one might think. Still, I told Jain that if I didn't go last night, I'd have to go tonight. B's orders