So, continuning the saga that was our flight to Buenos Aires, we were told tha the reason for the delay was a problem in the flight control tower in Buenos Aires which put the flight behind schedule. When we arrived in Buenos Aires, we were told that our luggage would be arriving on Carousel 3. So, a plane-ful of people that could not form a line now had to crowd around a luggage carousel. With carts. And small children who inexplicably could not stay with the one parent who was, like me, waiting in the receiving end of the bag collection from the carousel, and instead had to be with the parental unit making a mad grab for their luggage while simultaneously holding on to their kid. Fantastic. DCstudent stood by the carousel to grab the luggage while I stood behind (and I thought/tried to be out of the way), dodging luggage carts and people pushing, to receive and keep watch on our bags.

While we waited and watched an endless parade of luggage, we started to notice quizzical looks on our fellow passengers. None of these bags were ours. As it turns out, the flight after ours (our original and later flight) had been hot on our heels from Iguazu and had landed at virtually the same time. The board said that their luggage was on Carousel 2. These people had equally confused looks on their faces. Apparently none of the luggage on their carousel looked familiar either. So, now we had two planes-worth of confused and travel weary passengers trying to made the mad dash that is luggage retrieval oscillating between two luggage carousels. After two rounds of switching between Carousels 2 and 3 trying to get our bags (which in the end took around an hour) we were in a taxi and o nthe way to our hotel. In the cab, I made two requests to DCstudent: 1) a very, VERY large drink, and 2) that the next time we fly into Buenos Aires, we only bring carry-ons and they buy clothes, etc., here. I. Never. Want. To Do. That. AGAN. Ever.

Despite the traffic, the drive to the hotel was very relaxed compared to the chaos at the airport. The city is beautiful and the weather is very pleasant. It's hot, but it's not nearly as humid as Iguazu and there's a bit of a breeze every once in a while that is very refreshing. We checked into the Sheraton where we found out we'd been upgraded to a suite. We also chatted for a few minutes with the very nice young woman who checked us in. We told her we were planning to do some shopping on Avenue Florida (a popular pedestrian mall) and Galleria Pacifica (a mall in an old 19th century building that is absolutely gorgeous) and eat. She gave us some very good recommendations for shopping and directions to the restaurant that had been recommended to us by a coworker of DCstudent.

Our suite was located in the 21st floor with a view of the river and a port. The suite itself was very nice and spacious. We dropped our bags and headed off for Avenue Florida and Galleria Pacifica.