We woke past noon, as proper porteños should. The rain had cleared overnight, leaving Buenos Aires sparkling under spring sunshine that streamed through our hotel room windows.
"Un cafecito urgente," Colette mumbled into her pillow, then stretched like a cat in the warm light.
"Cortado," I agreed, already imagining the rich coffee and buttery media lunas that awaited us.
We dressed lazily and wandered into the Buenos Aires early afternoon, Colette stopping every few steps to turn her face toward the sun with arms outstretched, completely unselfconscious in her joy. I watched her soak up the warmth like she was storing it for later.
"You look like you're worshipping the sun," I said.
"I am," she replied without opening her eyes. "It's been too long."
We found a corner café with sidewalk tables and claimed one under the shade of a jacaranda tree, ready to ease into our first full day in the city.
Our visit coincided with a Queer Tango Festival, an event we had both looked forward to. This was our first tango event outside of her dance studio and it felt profoundly special to share this first experience with Colette in Buenos Aires, and even more so because it was in a community of queer people.
After our morning coffee we headed to our first class of the festival. The class was a vibrant milieu of tangueros from across the globe, members of the queer tango community from France, Germany, Sweden, the US, and Canada, each bringing their own unique flair and stories to the dance floor. The session started with a simple walking exercise. As we all began moving in the traditional ronda, the instructor approached us with a polite yet curious question, "Can you manage the walk?"
Colette, with her background as a former U.S. tango champion and a semifinalist in the Mundial competition, simply nodded, her confidence as reassuring as her presence. I, on the other hand, smiled, filled with appreciation for Colette's willingness to attend this beginner's class purely out of love for me.
After class, we stopped at a café for lunch and quickly discovered our first Buenos Aires challenge: hardly anywhere took credit cards. We needed cash, and we needed it now.
"¿Dónde casa de cambio?" Colette asked our waiter.
He suggested a bank, but we'd need our passports. Or, he added with a casual wave toward the street, we could find the casa de cambio guys just around the corner perfectly normal in Buenos Aires, he assured us.
Just around the corner. To find "guys" who would exchange our money. This already sounded dubious to me, but Colette was already standing up.
"Come Katerina," she said, heading for the door.
On the street, she spotted a gentleman leaning against a street light and approached him without hesitation. I watched as she explained our situation, her confidence as natural as breathing. This was so Colette, diving right in while I stood there calculating all the ways this could go wrong.
She returned with a smile. "He can help us, but we need to go with him."
"Go with him where?" I asked.
"Just around the corner," she said, already taking my arm.