Up at the Sheraton our room was not what it appeared to be;
all these glitches, mostly laughable and get-aroundable, but
still they added up.

For example, it was difficult to get our anticipated shower,
because the water ran hot or cold but not both, both out of
the rainshower and the tub spigot. One could solve this by
turning on the hot, then turning on the cold, then washing
one limb or another in the ten seconds it took for the cold
to take over the hot, then starting the process over again.
My solution was to take a bath.

The key cards sometimes worked after several tries. We got
them adjusted (there was a line at the temporary checkin -
the lobby is being renovated, so the desk has been relocated
to the former Link@Sheraton area) and reported the water
issue; during lili's recitation the guy sort of grimaced and
interrupted her, saying, the water runs either hot or cold,
right? as if this was something he heard ten times a day. He
promised to send engineering to come up and fix the problem.

It was an okay room in general, just there were substantial
boobooes, ending up with lili's being charged again for a
prepaid stay.

The executive lounge obviously has been burned by hordes of
Flyertalkers, as it has instituted a policy of one free
glass of wine or beer per person, afterwards, charge it to
your room at I think about 50 pesos a glass, maybe more. The
wine being poured, Latitud 33 Malbec, is a fresh-tasting,
fruity Chandon product that is one step above airline wine
and one step below real wine.

We were to meet everyone at 8 at La Dorita on Humboldt, so
we asked the executive lounge girl to call us a cab for 7:30
(we asked this at maybe 6:30), so what she did was to call
the doorman and alert him to this request. To be fair to
her, she's mostly a catering person, not really a concierge.
Anyhow, at 7:30 we excused ourselves and went downstairs to
find that although the doorman had been asked, he hadn't
actually called anyone. So he tried his cab company and
found that it being a feria or the day before a feria or the
day after a feria or something, no taxis were available, so
he told us that he was sorry and the best thing to do was to
go out on the street and hail one! So we did. I asked about
the fare and was told 40 or 50 pesos. After having a couple
of the few and far between empties poached by more
aggressive or at least demonstrative Portenos, we got the
hang of it and got into a relatively unmarked car (not the
yellow and black favored by the locals), which took us on
what I recognized as pretty much the most direct route, but
when we got out the meter said 58 pesos. I gave him 60 which
appears to have pleased him, and soon we were happily seated
with our friends, anticipating a tasty meal of beef parts.

There was talk of a communal salad, which was soundly hooted
down by our part of the table - to some of us, greens before
a meal is or are anathema. Turns out, the healthful folks at
the end over there ordered a salad for two, which was passed
around to everyone but still ended up unfinished. They serve
a lot of food in this city.

A few people ordered starters. I got a morcilla, which is
something I like very much and can't get very often back
home; it was also, at about $3 a serving, about the cheapest
thing on the carte. A big, dinner-size sausage, black as
night and flecked with bits of ground fat and skin like
stars, flavored with sweet spices in the classic way. I gave
some away to my more adventurous friends (not lili) and
still had enough to make a dinner from.

But that was the beginning. lili and I had ordered a vacio
and specified that it be as rare as possible. The waiter
indicated he understood with a gesture we would come to see
often - saying pssh pssh while pantomiming turning a steak.
High hopes. When it came, though, it was in two pieces, one
medium to medium well, the other medium well to incinerated.
In fact, all the orders came out mixed up in terms of cut
and doneness, so, as I said elsewhere, there was a brisk
secondary trade in cow parts, and I believe that everyone
was reasonably okay with what they ended up with, even if it
was a different cut than what they asked for. I had a chunk
of really almost raw tenderloin (somebody ordered medium) to
go along with a chewable though medium-well piece of vacio
(I'd ordered it rare). I took a couple bites of both and
called it a night, concentrating on the wine (Norton DOC
Malbec 13) and the memory of the rather nice blood sausage.

Several versions of potato around the table - the fried were
quite good, very hot and crisp and cooked of course in
rendered suet. Someone had mashed, but I didn't try it.

We'd compared taxi rates and found that the people who had
come from the Park Hyatt (a shorter drive than ours) had
paid 70 for their trip, so we figured that 80-85 would be
what to expect for our return.

The taxi driver tried to take us to the wrong hotel. You
see, the Sheraton Libertador is on Avenida Cordoba at Maipu,
but there is in fact a Sheraton on Avenida Libertador, only
it's called something else. The guy took us toward the wrong
one but heeded our objections and got us to the right one
eventually, cost 90 (would likely have been 85 if we'd gone
more directly).

Next attempt at a shower. Failure. The front desk swore up
and down that the maintenance guy had checked and found
everything fine.

At least the beds were nice.