Milan-No!

It’s 3am, and we are dejected, rejected and stranded in the outskirts of Milan.
REEEEWWWWINNND.

It all begins when we decide to head to “Zoo Latino” – which was recommended to us as ‘the place to go’ to dance salsa in Milan. It was quite a way out of town, but we jump in a cab and head out there.

As we first walk in, we were absolutely amazed. The venue was huge! Four large rooms all playing different latin music (mainly salsa, some bachata as well). It was massive, packed, and happening. “Holy shit!” said Carlos “we should move to Milan! This is amazing!”

However our joy was shortlived.

You see apparently the dancers in Milan don’t really do strangers, or dance with strangers, or talk to strangers. And they definitely don’t ask them to dance.

Usually when we go out, all it takes is for me and Elli to dance a couple of songs with our boys (Carlos, Colin and Juan) and once people see we can dance, we get constantly asked by local boys.

Not in Milan.

The other dancers there watched us dance, but they didn’t ask us. They didn’t even make eye contact with us. And… wait for it… when Colin decided to break the ice and ask one of the local girls? She said “No.” as did the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

No explanation, no smile, just “no”.

And so it continued. Until at the pinnacle, Elli herself (who NEVER asks guys to dance) approached one of the better dancers and asked him to dance.

He rejected her.

I don’t think you can possibly understand how this affected Elli – who has never been flatly turned down for a dance – ever! Her face looked like death, she crawled back to us not sure if she should be angry, offended, or totally depressed.

And the worst part? They weren’t even that good! They weren’t bad dancers, but definitely not to the level we’d danced with in Puerto Rico, New York, or at any international congress.

So the night continued pretty unimpressively. I did get asked to dance a couple of times eventually – but by beginner guys. Elli got asked once (also by a relative beginner). The boys continued to get turned down most of the time, with just one or two dances each with local girls. So we finally gave up and just started drinking.
However in case the night couldn’t get any worse, we then got to the end of the evening and tried to call a cab.

Only to be told that cabs don’t go there late at night. They basically can’t be bothered to drive all the way there.

So there we were – no dances. No friends. No transport. About 25 kilometres from our hotel. And it was about to start raining.

What a night.

Thankfully the non-dancers in Milan were pretty nice people, and it was actually the doorman who came to our rescue, as he chatted to us, commandeered a friend of his, and the two guys drove us all the way back to our hotel. But for the kindness of these strangers? Well it would have been a verrrrry long walk.

Milan in our memories? Forever = “Milan-no”.