So using my arch nemesis, Spanish, no less, to learn tango.

Long steps. So a lot of milongueros the tango dancers will use very short steps.

I found myself in Argentina in 2005, decided to watch a tango class had no intention of participating.

More specifically, I want you to feel like you're capable of becoming an excellent long distance swimmer, a world class language learner, and a tango champion.

Late at night, after hours of practicing, I would listen to Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday as the sounds of tango music would be creeping from my parents' stereo.

Its history has seen many coups, tens of thousands of people missing, a war with Great Britain, bouts of hyperinflation, a brutal economic crisis, default on foreign debt, and its most vulnerable citizens going hungry. But there is also a theatrical intensity about the Argentine character we are dramatic like the tango and somber like the novels of Ernesto Sábato.