Intermission

Mendoza was built on a desert. Everything that grows here is the work of man.

The first thing that strikes you when you see Mendoza is how GREEN it is. There are big trees lining both sides of every street. This is a photo of the Paseo Sarmiento, the walking street. It’s a night shot (actually around 1:00 in the morning) so the sky is black instead of a blazing blue.

We arrived in the spring, and Mendoza was already hot. Summer is upon us, and it’s getting hotter. But the streets are cool and shady. No one wears a hat here – that marks you as a tourist. Sitting out on the wide sidewalks for a meal or coffee is comfortable, and walking is a delight.

Here is a more typical daytime photo, not on any particularly interesting or busy street. If you look at the sky, the sun seems to be blazing through the trees. But look at the shadows on the road - it’s cool and comfortable to walk on.  The amazing thing is that every single street is shady.

There are parks everywhere in Mendoza. They are Disneyland verdant, with fountains and artificial lakes. And lots of shade trees.

Mendoza was built on a desert. The area was developed by farmers – mostly immigrants from Spain and Italy - who built on the ancient irrigation canals of the indigenous farmers. The fruit orchards and vineyards that circle the city are fed by this irrigation system.

The original city was flattened in an earthquake in 1861, and the new city was laid out using the same irrigation ditches as the farms surrounding it. The trees in the city are a carefully planned and nurtured crop.

There aren’t any rivers in the area – the current irrigation system taps water from the snow-covered mountains, 100 km away. Once you leave the city, you can see what the ‘natural’ vegetation looks like – scrub and tumbleweeds. There are man-made lakes in the countryside that serve as reservoirs, keeping the spring run-off until it is needed.

Water enters the city from the west (near San Martin Park), the high point. There, the irrigation canals there are wide and deep.

A series of gates allows the municipal workers to redirect the flow down and across both sides of every street in Mendoza. Every single street. On some of the bigger streets, the ditches are under the sidewalks, visible through grating (sometimes you can’t see the water, but you can hear it gurgling). Most streets simply have open ditches like this one.

When we walk to school in the morning, a few ditches will be running with water. When we walk back home after classes, the water will be running in different ditches. That night, they will be different again.

There are some practical problems – you have to be careful jaywalking across the road because you have to jump the ditches on both sides. Even at proper intersections, a misstep will drop you into a gutter – it’s almost happened to us at night.

I have no idea how handicapped people can get around here. Michelle spotted this sign for handicap unloading near a hospital, and thought it was a cruel joke – it’s a long hike to get to a ‘bridge’ at the corner where you could cross to the sidewalk.

If you have a garage or carport, you need to lay a bridge across the river running across the front of your house. You have to be careful when getting out of a parked car on the passenger side. The gutters collect debris – bottles and litter – and municipal workers are continually cleaning them out.

But the result is a ‘forest-city’ – a cool, leafy, lovely oasis of trees in the desert. It’s a miracle.

It is getting hot in town — summer in Mendoza reaches mid 40’s, and we’re thinking about how to escape the heat. Mendoza is surrounded by mountains, and there are lovely scenic areas outside the city. So we’re hoping for a short vacation from our vacation - a night at a country lodge.

One of our key requirements for the road trip was a place with some sort of water access. This is a desert area, so we know there aren’t any big lakes - we’re thinking swimming pool.

Friends had recommended a cabina in San Raphael, but that’s at least a four hour drive - seems like a lot for a short break. So off to the travel agent we go for alternate options. They are helpful—we know just the place, they say - the Potrerillos district (just about impossible for us to pronounce).   About an hour and a half from Mendoza, deluxe cabins, swimming pool, overlooking the river, restaurants, river rafting, trekking, horseback riding, etc.

We see pictures; they nail down bus transfers, animated discussions with other agents about the various recreational options, and how to enter this vacation into the computer — 45 minutes pass sedately. One small detail, oops, when they finally call the resort, there are no vacancies. Back to the drawing board.

Next suggestion, a group of cabins close to the first, in El Salto. Again, the pictures are vetted. Yes they have a vacancy. Reservation made. OOPS. The bus that will take us there doesn’t leave Mendoza until 6:30 PM. Tom persists with our broken Spanish, we finally understand that the bus schedule changes each day - that if we go a day later then there is a morning bus.

Aside: We could hire a private driver to take us, but that would be cheating. There is some small triumph in being able to negotiate the local transport, it makes us feel less like tourists. We could also rent a car, but the local drivers are insane and traffic signals are optional. Tom won’t even discuss driving here.

I am probably as relaxed as I can be, but we have been sitting in front of this travel agent for 90 minutes, and there is no end in sight. It seems to be an unreasonable amount of time to spend arranging a two day trip. I can’t take it anymore - I leave to pick up some groceries, leaving patient Tom to arrange the return trip

Tom concludes the arrangements. We can ask the bus driver to drop us off at the door of the lodge, and wave him down the next day as he passes - door to door service. The return bus passes the hotel at 10:40 AM. No, the hotel doesn’t have a restaurant, but there is a good one across the road. With a little help from the office computer expert, the reservations are entered, and the vouchers for the hotel and buses are printed. About 3 hours hard slogging.

And so on the appointed day, we go to the bus terminal and catch the appointed bus at the appointed time. An hour and a half later, the driver drops us off at the roadside entrance to our resort.

The hotel staff were a little surprised to see us, since they had no record of this reservation. But luckily they have an empty cabina that is cleaned and available. It is lovely.

The views are spectacular. The lodge is nestled in a small valley, with mountains in every direction.

There is a fully equipped sparkling kitchen. Not a kitchenette - a full kitchen, with a barbeque for cooking a traditional parilla behind the cabina.

And they have a lovely swimming pool. Unfortunately, it is empty (we never thought to ask).

There is neither a coffee shop nor a tuck shop, and you guessed it, we did not pack a picnic basket. We figure we can live on love (and 2 apples and 2 oranges) for 24 hours, but we are close to a number of tiny towns, and it’s logical that there will be mini-markets where we can pick up some cheese and crackers.

And so we venture out. The cloudless sky is a perfect blue. We head uphill following the road in the direction of our fleeing bus. We find the horse rentals, summer camps, other hotels, and a restaurant about a kilometre and a half up the road, but no mini-market. There is a lovely restaurant, closed for the afternoon - we note it as a dinner option. We are in the middle of nowhere.

We double back and retrace the bus route the other way. We remember seeing small kiosks along the road, but some distance back. We are saved a ten km. march when the only other residents of the resort drive by, in search of similar provisions, and give us a lift.

We add some yogurt and cheese to our larder and feel much more comfortable about the state of the world. (The other couple loaded up with a mountain of barbecue meat, beer, and junk food - they may have been settling in for a seige).

When we return, we hike along the river hoping it will substitute for the sorry state of the pool. We take off our shoes and walk across it - while it is not higher than our knees, it betrays its mountain origins. This water was snow earlier in the day, and is FREEZING COLD.

Michelle the Brave (but not yet adle-brained) will not be swimming in this river.

But it’s warm, the air is fresh, the birds are chirping. And so we yield to the country. We return to the cabina and nap. We gaze at the views, and inspect our empty swimming pool. We snack on our patio and read contentedly. We nap again.

The day draws to a close, and the view from our porch turns to pink and gold.

When dinner time occurs to us (around 8:30 PM), we walk the 300 meters across the road and up a dirt path to the restaurant. It’s still closed - the chairs are still up on the tables - but we talk to the owner and he is delighted to take our order and deliver to the cabina in an hour or so when he opens. We’re happy we don’t have to make our way back by starlight. We have a romantic dinner on the porch.

We decide to stay a second night. WHAT?? you say. Well, it’s like this, we discover that the bus that will is supposed to take us back doesn’t actually pass by the resort the next day (the day we have a ticket for). It passes by a town about 3 km. from us, and we can hike there if we care to.

Or we can stay. The pool is being filled overnight. And what is our hurry?

And so we yield to the the laws of physics. We are bodies at rest, staying deeply and firmly at rest. Another two-nap day, with our only exercise being a walk out to buy more cheese and crackers (this time, directly to the nearest mini-mart).

We stroll to the restaurant up the hill for lunch. We are the only customers. Guard-dogs slept contentedly under our chairs. The clouds chase each other across the sky.

We go for a refreshing swim in the now filled pool. EEKS. It is the same temperature as the river, our lips are blue after a few minutes, but we are hearty Canadians. Poolside is warm and sunny, and we are happy.

And exactly 24 hours later than we planned, we pick up our bus back to town. A perfect mini vacation.

This is wine country. The big festival in the Mendoza area celebrates the grape harvest, or ‘Vendemia’. But it is still early summer here in Argentina – peak growing season - and we won’t be around when the harvest is brought in.

Fortunately, there was an alternate bacchanal this weekend. Familia Zuccardi, one of the largest (750ha) wineries in Maipu had its once-a-year degustacion on Sunday.

This bodega is closed to the public 364 days of the year, so when they open their gates it is a lively party. Approximately 5000 people drove out to celebrate.

The price of admission was only $25 pesos ($7) for all-you-can-eat-and-drink, but the bodega is not close to any public transit routes, which keeps out those who can’t afford alternate modes . So, it was a young, affluent crowd that formed the majority of the guests.

Thanks to the organization skills of one of the other students (from France, where else?), a group of us headed out in the comfort of a small bus. Wanting to get our full $25 pesos worth, we headed out at 11:30 with a plan to return at 6.

On arrival, we collected our sampling glass and degustacion notebook (no pencil—let’s not kid ourselves that this was serious work), and began working our way through the various tasting rooms.

There were 11 reds, 6 whites, 4 olive oils, 3 champagnes, 2 fortified wines, 1 rose on offer. Fortunately there was a lot of bread at hand to cleanse the palate, and cheese to keep the crowd standing (and round out the flavours of the wine).

But just in case you needed more sustenance, they were also sampling ice creams—vanilla with Malbec (very nice), peach with Syrah (pleasant), and pineapple with Viogner (it would have been piggy of me to try all three).

For those who do not live by wine alone, there was more hearty fare for sale..

The day was sunny, warm, and clear. The various gardens at the bodega were lovely. The organizers had laid out hay bales instead of chairs, and happy groups of tipplers perched to listen to live music.

Meanwhile, on another patio professional tango dancers variously entertained and picked out willing (and variably able) dance partners from the spectators.

Several of the group were feeling no pain by the time we found our way back to our bus at the end of the day The party continued at the house of MScott and Rachel – we didn’t go (we had committed to meeting some amigos at a Tango dancehall that night). It must have been a good time, the school was very quiet the next morning.

All and all, a successful promotional event for Zuccardi and a perfect day for us.

Twenty years ago, the Tango was out of fashion in Argentina. Only older people danced the Tango, and only tourists were interested in it. Kids didn’t learn to dance, and the music was considered old-fashioned. Could anything have been more un-cool than playing the accordion back then?

Well, that’s all changed. ‘Electronic Tango’ is hot music. The accordion is the coolest instrument on the planet. And Tango culture is once again the heart of Argentina.

Michelle and I are out every single night of the week, either taking Tango lessons, watching Tango, listening to Tango, or dancing the Tango at one of the Milongas (dance clubs) in town.

Mendoza is a quiet, rural town, there are only a handful of Malongas here. The ‘Tango Culture’ here is very small, you run into the same people again and again in the dance clubs. It is laid-back, everyone tells us how tranquil it is compared to Buenos Aires – where they start later and party harder.

Don’t know how that can be. We can schedule our lessons at reasonable times, but the shows, practices and dances typically start around 10:00, and dinner is afterwards. We often eat with amigos, who remind us that Mendoza is the heart of Argentina’s wine district – and so why don’t we order another bottle. We have to hustle home to get to bed by 1:30AM, often with sore heads. I’m sure we were able to do this when we were younger, but this life is hard for us now.

Anyhow, here’s a quick snapshot of a week of our ‘Tango Nights’.

This is Ana and Luis, our dance teachers. We take two private lessons with them per week – 90 minutes each. Then we try to attend at least two of their three group lessons per week, great opportunities to practice and get help if we get stuck.

You wouldn’t think there was any time left for anything else. Especially since we have homework every night from Spanish school.

But there’s so much going on in Mendoza – something every night. We missed one of the group lessons to have dinner at La Mar – they have live music every Tuesday night, and they had brought in a local Electronic Tango group. The food was terrific, the wine flowed like water, and the music was sexy and hot.

These guys were a 3-piece band – violin, squeeze-box, and keyboard. Very jazzy, kind of a jazz-tango fusion. The accordion (played by the guy in the middle) is a surprisingly expressive instrument – a combination of percussive breaths and a plaintive melody voice. With some electronics, it is as versatile as an electric guitar.

Later in the week, a ballet performance. “Compania de Danza Lucia Y Valentina Fusari” was playing at the Teatro Independencia - a lovely old art-deco building – and we had to go see it. The main event was a ballet to Fados music – spectacular – that had sold out several nights in Buenos Aires. Being an Argentine dance company, they also had a very hot Tango number on the program. (No photos allowed, but I snapped this one when they came out for a round of applause).

And out to the Milongas to dance the night away. We are not much more than beginners, and we like to get to the club early before the dance floor gets crowded. The Mendocinos typically show up at 11:00 or later (and work the next day), we’re happy to be finished by then (and heading out for dinner).

And then, the big event. Electronic Tango has become the rage here. It’s a modern evolution of the 150-year old tradition, and it’s really good.

The best-known group in Argentina is The Bajo Fondo Tango Club – they are the superstars. They are holding a concert in Mendoza, in the biggest venue available. It’s the hottest show in town, sold out, people have been talking about nothing else. And Michelle and I have front-row tickets !!

These guys are the ‘Pink Floyd’ of Tango – both in the classical, multi-layered flavor of their complex music, and in the wonderful 1970’s style rock concert format. We are in awe of the technical skills of the musicians – they clearly love this music. The performance isn’t polished, it isn’t choreographed, it’s loud as heck, and it’s a HUGE amount of fun. The melodies are infectious – you just can’t sit still.

We were giggling like children. We didn’t know the songs (unlike the rest of the audience, which would roar and sing along with the better known pieces). Didn’t matter, we had SUCH a good time.

Bajo Fondo doesn’t really play dance music – it’s more rock-tango fusion with a heavy beat. But there are other groups that have taken the electronic sounds and created very traditional Tango dance music. Our favorite is Gotan Project - when we are practicing Tango in the apartment, that’s what we put on. Here’s a sample of their music ( a 30-second clip from Amazon.com), listen for the accordian.

gotan-sample

In two weeks, we hit Buenos Aires – where there are about 150 Malonga’s, and a much larger, much more active Tango community. We’ll have enough Spanish and beginner Tango to be able to navigate. It will be the adventure of our lives.  Just wish there were more nights in a week.

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We are enjoying Mendoza, and have decided to extend our stay to 6 weeks. Staying with a family was fun, but we needed our own space. We have set up our temporary home in an apartment-hotel within walking distance of most of our haunts—school, dancing, restaurants, shopping.

The apartment is part of an eight unit complex. Each unit has a small kitchen, living room and bathroom on the main floor, and a bedroom in the loft above. Modern and clean.  The cost is modest–$40 day.

There are green patios between the units for privacy, and a vine covered pergola over the back garden—perfect for reading and wine tasting. In typical Argentine style there are two serous barbecues set up in case you need to cook your own steak. (There are more parrilla restaurants than coffee shops, so no need to do it yourself.)

But because it is a hotel, they supply breakfast (coffee and juice) and media lunas (sweet croissants). In the interests of our waistlines, we have traded the croissants for larger glasses of juice and supplement this with yogurt and cereal.

We have a standing arrangement for 7:30, but this does not prevent the late night call (10:30) from the front desk to ask what time we would like our breakfast. Of course, it is not late by Argentinian standards.

It is because of these Argentinian time standards that we have set up our own kitchen. We can avoid the ignominy of being seen to “dine before nine”, like a tourist.   And we can make a salad (not a commonly-seen food group here).

Of course this means grocery shopping. Because we are studying until 1 pm, we have found certain challenges to doing this. By the time we start home after classes, the small shops are closing down for lunch and siesta. When the shops reopen at 5 there are often shoppers anxiously waiting in line, and the stores will stay open until 9 PM.. It takes some getting used to this schedule

Overall, we have managed to adapt, and find shops for fruits and vegetables, cheese and meats, bread and pasta. One of our favorite vegetable ’stores’ is this sidewalk kiosk down the street – somehow the Chinese family running it seem to have the freshest and best variety, and the friendliest, fastest service.

We were amazed by some of the prices. This large bag of fruit and vegetables was $13 pesos (less than $4 dollars).

One of our favorite place to shop is the old Mercado Central, which is similar to St. Lawrence market in Toronto. It is thoroughly modern, but in an old-fashioned sort of way.   There are about 20 kiosks like this - with different specialties.

The variety is amazing, and much of it is local. After all, Mendoza is an agricultural center.

Our other alternative is to shop at the supermarkets. They are indistinguishable from their North American cousins, and open throughout the day and evening. The one near our apartment is so crowded at times that there is not a shopping cart to be had. But before you think that these are paragons of efficiency, you need to stand in the checkout line.

The lines are painfully long, because the cashiers don’t use scanners. They will key in the UPC code on a product – and if their computer doesn’t find it, then ask a manager for a price check. There seems to be some mysterious paperwork that is required from each cashier every few minutes that stops the line.

And then, there is the problem of making change.

The most immediate currency crisis in Argentina is not the one on the front pages of the business sections. There is simply not enough change. The bank machines dispense nothing but $100 peso notes, but a $100 peso note will create a crisis if you use it to pay for a taxi.

Smaller bills are worn down from reuse until they are barely recognizable. Coins are scarce. Actually the coin situation is considered good here because the buses use a smart-card system. We are told to stockpile our coins and take them to Buenos Aires, where the shortage is dire.

Even in the large supermarkets, rendering a $100 peso note (about $30 USD) for a $45 peso grocery order will require a cashier to get change from a central cash desk. Sometimes the cashier will start processing the next customer while you wait, but often not. It is considered a courtesy to have small coin change or $2 peso notes to assist in these transactions.

But the store that had us shaking our heads in disbelief was a small deli where all the cheese and cold-cut products had weight and price barcoded onto printed tags. In typical North American fashion, we took what we wanted off the shelves, and to the cashier, only to be sent to the back of the store to have these items reweighed.

There, a woman used a pricing scale to generate duplicate bar codes to the ones on the packages, which were affixed to a strip of paper (presumably for inventory purposes). When she was done, we took back that strip, with our purchases, to the cashier. She hand-wrote the details of each item on a control list, and then processed our order using her barcode scanner. If this sounds time consuming, well, we are mellow from being on vacation, but we don’t have to go back there.

The basic problem is that store owners don’t trust their employees. Everything has to be handled by several people, and create paper trails that can be cross-referenced.

There are other book keeping habits that make me smile—like watching a clerk sew up the day’s invoices with ribbons, into a lovely packet for the accountant to process.

Still and all, for my money, the fruit vendor has it right—quick and friendly service—as long as you have small bills.

We’re falling into a routine – four hours of Spanish lessons each morning, tango lessons and practice most nights. Mendoza weather is predictably sunny with day-time hitting 30 degrees. Life here is pretty perfect, hard to imagine any improvement.

But of course, we try. On the weekend, we decide to escape the city to the Cacheuta thermal water spa, about an hour’s drive from the city.

We go to the bus terminal to rendez-vous with the van that will take us there. I hustle Tom to get there for nine o’clock, punto! Tom bets me 20 pesos that we will not leave before 9:30, and sure enough it’s 9:45 before we see our van.

We leave the city and soon approach the mountains that skirt the city. The countryside shows its desert colours.. Behind this inner border of dusty crenelated hills are snow covered ones. Water from these mountains feed the city of Mendoza and make it a green oasis. (Historical note-the Incas first developed the system of irrigation from the mountains.)

But it is not the cold waters from the mountains that we are heading for. Mendoza is in an earthquake zone and is seismically active. We are going to the hot springs.

We arrive, pick up robes, and head out into the hot cascading pools at the side of the river.

Like kids in a candy shop, we don’t know which ones to try first-the ones with water cascading down, or ones where it is bubbling up. Some are hot, some warm, some cool. Like Goldilocks, I know that we have hit one that is just right when I see the smile on Tom’s face.

But in our haste to soak, we omitted an important step in the process—the therapeutic mud. And so I coat myself in a fine layer of mineral rich mud.

The next step is to bake in the sun until dry. We wait patiently to become life size terracotta figures.

As I paint, I sing a happy hippopotamus song to myself:

Mud, mud glorious mud

Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood…

(Flanders and Swan)

After vigorous hosing, we are now ready for a proper pool progression.

The Cacheuta resort is an old ‘railway hotel’, with huge grace and dignity. The walls are lined with photos from a century ago, when the wealthy would travel out from Mendoza to take the waters for their rheumatism.

We end at the side of and old style Olympic size swimming pool and read until lunch.

Lunch is a lavish ‘asado a la parrilla’ – a barbeque buffet with mountains of beef, pork, chicken, and lots of other options. There is far too much to try everything, but we make our best stab at it..

The dessert table is also lavish. While Tom is finishing a second plate of barbeque, I visit it and come back with a heaping plate of different flans, pies, mousses, and poached fruits. I offer to share with Tom. But I don’t share – somehow I eat them all myself.

The afternoon passes quickly beside the pool, the sun slowly moves across the perfect blue skies and there are unconfirmed rumours of naps in the shade. Swallows race back and forth across the lawn, missing us by inches as they hunt for insects.

At 6:00 PM, we load into the bus and head back to Mendoza, in a state of bliss.

We did a real tourist thing - went to the ‘Wine and Tango’ dinner cabaret. It’s something the locals would never do, strictly for visitors. It was a thank-you night on the town for our house mother, Malena, who took such amazing care of us.

Sometimes I think that tourists have all the fun. The locals don’t visit the museums, don’t rent bicycles in wine country, etc. Same as at home I guess. Well, this evening was serious fun.

‘Wine and Tango’ is a dinner-and-show event. Singing, dancing, and live music, with a thread of history that ties the performance together. There is a big-screen movie that relates the history of immigration into Mendoza, the evolution of the wine industry here, and the evolution of the tango culture. The performers and musicians tie it together.

The original tango was danced only by men. This probably had to do with the shortage of women - immigrants would come over to work, leaving their families at home. Another variation of the story says that men danced together in the waiting areas of brothels.

The style of this particular dance is that the men never face each other. Imagine that they both have knives, so they always must keep the other at an angle to avoid giving an opportunity to stab.

Over time, the prostitutes joined in the dancing, and the tango evolved into a very sexual, intimate dance.

Early tango was mostly just drums. The accordion became the key instrument, often with a violin or guitar.

In the early days, ‘Tango’ was much more than just a dance. Yes, there was dancing, but also tango music, tango poetry, a tango slang vocabulary, and an underworld culture of tango. It was dangerous, and very low-class.

Then, somehow, tango became popular in Paris in the 1920s. And with that ’seal of approval’, tango returned to Argentina, and became the mainstream culture. It evolved into the ‘Golden Age’ of tango, which is what we are mostly familiar with.

Carlos Gardel, ‘El Zorzal’, was probably the most famous singer and movie star in Latin America, the Frank Sinatra of Tango. When he died in an airplane crash in 1935, several women around the world attempted suicide. The show did a tribute to him, and everyone in the audience (except us) seemed to know the words to his music.

The show continued with various singing and dancing routines.

The ‘Tango’ being danced in the show has no relation to the tango we are learning in our dance classes. These are highly choreographed and polished set-pieces, performed by professional dancers with ballet training. Our tango is an organic lead-and-follow, where two strangers can walk out to the floor together and dance.

Dancing is part of the culture here, so the show had a dance competition. They invited members of the audience up on stage to dance with the pros - no practice, just get up and dance - and ranked them on the ‘applause meter’. The shock was how good the audience competitors were.

At the beginning of the night, as we were being led to our table, we were asked what country we were from. At the end of the show, we found out why. The two singers did a quick tour of the audience, welcoming people from each country. And with each country came a blast of that country’s music.

“Who is here from MEXICO ?” - and the theatre pulsed with mariachi music while the visitors from Mexico stood and waved from their chairs. “Who is here from BRAZIL ?” to an infectious samba beat that had everyone clapping along. Reggaton from the Dominican Republic, Cumbia from Columbia, Malonga from Chile, different Salsas from Costa Rica and Panama, Merengue from Venezuela.

This went on for some time - there were about 130 people in the theatre, all tourists, and all from Latin America. Many were in Mendoza for a big medical convention. The crowd was rollicking, fuelled by clapping, dancing, party music, and wine.

And then, “Who is here from CANADA ?” - and this mournful, slow, toneless dirge played on the speakers. The temperature of the room seemed to drop 10 degrees. I looked at Michelle - expressions of mystification, then shock, then horror as she recognized the opening bars of Celine Dion’s theme from Titanic.

We thought that we should provide the theatre with a different tune, perhaps a Shania Twain recording, as a gift to future Canadian visitors. We are taking your suggestions…