February 12,

Up and about by 0700. Finished packing, readied, and had our Javas. We were out by 0900. Jeff took a picture of the electrical meter and sent it to our host. As we were exiting the building, I saw the housekeeper. I said, “Ciao,” with a cheek-air kiss, the way they do here. She was always pleasant and smiling. We loaded into the Cabify taxi that Jeff had ordered, and we were off to the airport.

As we entered the airport, we noticed the grounds of the airport to be grapevines!!! Gotta love that. It’s a small airport. It was 0915. We checked in our bags(were asked if we were checking wine in our bags) and were through security by 0930 – off to the lounge we went. We had breakfast in probably the smallest lounge we have been in. There were not any hot foods but a good selection.

At 1030 the boarding for our flight began, left the lounge, and boarded the plane by 1040. The plane backed up at 1107. Take off was at 1117… this was 13 minutes early! At 1233 we touched down…25 minutes early!!!

     WELCOME TO BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA!!

At 1247, we disembarked on the tarmac and were bused to a gate. We had our bags by 1256, and by 1305 we were in our Cabify taxi to the Hilton Buenos Aires Hotel. We arrived at 1333, and went to check in for one night. This hotel was included in our cruise package. We were early and the room wasn’t ready. We then checked in with our cruise people (they conveniently had a table set up right next to check in). Seems we will be leaving tomorrow morning at 0350 and breakfast at 0215-0345!!! Yikes! The room was still not ready, so we left our big bags and went on a walkabout.

We found DHL and got their mailing address (so we can attempt to get our new credit card…again). Then we walked by where we will be staying for a month after our cruise. The city, at least right here, has many grand old buildings and lots of statues. It has a good feel to it. We did stop at a local shop, bought a lettuce salad and coleslaw. We also happened upon a changing of the guard(?). Not sure because it was very anticlimactic.

At 1515, we arrived back at the Hilton Hotel. Our plush room was ready. We unloaded our stuff and cooled off. Then we ate our food. We went down to the lobby bar for our free welcome drink. We have to put our checked bags in front of our door by 8:00pm. Plan to go to bed early for such an early start in the morning.