Buenos Aires - Day 1

Our trip to Buenos Aires was one of the best vacations I've ever taken.

Here're my top 5 reasons.

1) I had the best travel partner ever....

Dear Darling Malena, thank you for being you. You're one of those people who have no idea just how beautiful they are. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I'm so thankful that tango has brought us together. We must book our next BsAs trip soon but I have only one request... can you please lighten up on the luggage next time??

2) No schedules (except for tango lessons and massages). It was all about me, me, me... without an ounce of guilt. For one week, we lived as if life didn't exist outside of BsAs.

3) No boys... and kept flirting to a minimal. (wink)

4) We had at least one good belly laugh per day.

5) Our days were filled with champagne & dulce de leche and our nights, champagne and tango.

Day 1

Stepped outside the airport and felt a chill in the air. Damn, we only packed summer clothes! Ok, sleeping on the plane just plain sucks... have neck cramps and feel puffy all over from the 11 hour flight. We arrived at our ultra girly duplex apartment in Las Canitas and met Eugenia, the rental manager. She was so sweet and wonderful. She even offered to help us get the three items we so desperately needed (a sim card for my cellphone, a hair dryer, and an adaptor).

The apartment. Antique white and pale lilac walls, each rooms tastefully decorated with a posh mix of antique furniture and modern touches. We stepped outside our balcony (one on each floor) and heard the birds chirping away. Realizing our first tango lesson was in just 3 hours, we decided to get some lunch at the corner restaurant. Ahhh! Our first cup of cafe con leche and jamon y queso sandwiches.

Our first lesson. We had initially wanted to take privates all week with Geraldine but at the last minute decided to spend the money on expanding our tango shoe collection instead. So we opted to go with someone less well known but came highly recommended to us by several tango friends. He was a delight and we spent our first lesson getting to know each other and talked about what we wanted to work on for the week. Neither Malena or I like to get too technical when it comes to tango. We are not one of those people who takes notes and breakdown every move mathematically. We'd rather not rationalize too much but spend the time repeating the right movements and letting it sink into our muscle memory. Before we left him, we ask if he could help us make a phone call to our masseuse, whom didn't speak a word of english. Several weeks back, we found an ad for a masseuse name Sebastian on Craiglist. I responded to the ad but didn’t get a response. The next day I noticed another ad with the same name. Thinking it was the same person, Ms Smartypants decided to try writing again, but this time I send it to both email addresses from the two ads. Later that day, I received two different responses in Spanish with references and contact numbers. It didn't occur to me that they were from two different people till the day we were leaving. I received an email from one of the Sebastians, this time in english (w/ help from a friend), questioning the other email address. This started a battle between the two sebastians. One said the other was on his tail trying to steal his clients, while the other one accused him of being an unqualified masseuse because he doesn’t even own a massage table. Malena and I had a discussion and decided to go with Sebastian #2, the one without qualifications and massage table. Why? because we saw his photo and he is hot. (wink)

After our lesson, we decided to get a small bite before getting ready for our first milonga. Pizza and empanadas. We went to the pizzaria downstairs from the apt. I walked up to the counter and said, "Cuatro empanadas con carne, Una pizza y una pizza napoli, por favor." The bill came out to 20+pesos. We paid it and started to wonder why pizza was so expensive in BsAs. 5 minutes later, we decided to check the menu and realized he thought we'd wanted one pizza pie each. It took us 15 minutes to explain we only wanted 1 slice of pizza and 2 small empanadas each. The guy behind the counter gave us back our change and we left there with 3 slices and 4 empanadas. Ok... not bad for our first attempt. We picked up a bottle of red on the way home. Pizza y empanadas con vino rojo para cena. Malena giggled while she ate her empanada and said, "These things are good!" Apparently, It was her first empanada... ever. It was a kodak worthy moment... so I snapped our first photo in BsAs.

Off to La Viruta. It was more of a disco than a milonga with mixed music. We went there because we heard Color Tango was playing that night. The place was already packed when we arrived at 11:30pm. We were definitely too elegantly dressed for the place. A lot of the younger women were in jeans and skimpy tops. The minute we sat down, we noticed a few men started to gather by our table. We were anxious and excited to receive our very first cabeceo. I glanced at the men around me a few times but mostly kept my eyes on the dance floor. What can I say, maybe it's a cultural thing but I was definitely not that comfortable with the idea of staring at a stranger for more than a second. While I was observing the dance floor, I felt a "tap tap tap" on the right shoulder, then I heard a man say “Bailar tango???” He was a porteno in his 50's... so I nodded, got up from my seat and started my week of Tang-a-thon.

Color Tango came on around 1:30am. A tall, dark and handsome man in a dark suit gave Malena the cabeceo. Malena danced three songs then excused herself because she was worried that he was being polite and was waiting for her to say thank you. We knew that dancing more than one tanda with someone might be misconstrued for romantic interest but what do you do when an orchestra is playing and there is no cortina to mark the end of a tanda??? She sat down and pouted, so I encouraged her to give him the cabeceo later. La Viruta was a decent size venue and he was the only well dressed good looking man in the place (that we noticed). She waited and looked his way several times but he seemed to be busy dancing with other women. After that, I decided not to follow the codigo and danced with the same man while Color Tango was performing their second set. They were outstanding, the energy in the room was electrifying, the sound was mesmerizing. My partner was an older tanguero with the most comfortable embrace and a soft but clear milonguero lead. I closed my eyes and danced with a smile on my face. Every fiber in my body was excited by the music, each movement executed from my core. Wow, after months of anticipation, we're finally here. I was so happy and filled with unexpected emotions that my eyes started to swell up. I don't think I've ever fully understood what "living in the moment" meant till then.

We left around 4:30am. We were hungry and wandered around our neighborhood looking for media lunas but nothing was open. We noticed a man in red car watching us, circling our block several times. Yikes! Still in our 4 inch CIF stilettos, we ran back to our apt. Ugh! Must sleep! Have to wake up at 11:30am for lesson 2.