Friday December 11, 2009
Today we slept in and lounged around the hotel. We were not really motivated to go out and do anything and after a long week it was nice to relax. We surfed the Internet and ate at the hotel bar for lunch. I was toying with the idea of going back to Florida street to see that shop with the clothes I liked, but I don’t really have enough room to squeeze anything else in my suitcase. Another thing I was thinking about was treating myself to a massage treatment at the Hilton Spa, but they were booked for the whole afternoon. Next time, I need to plan ahead.
We finally left the hotel and did a walk around the Puerto Madero buildings one last time. Gary was looking for some cookies to take back to Grandma, but we didn’t have much luck. The Hilton was kind enough to extend our checkout to 6pm with no charge, and after that we sent our bags to the bellmen and waited in the Executive Lounge and enjoyed our complimentary snacks and drinks one last time. I took a final “Sunset over Buenos Aires” photo before we packed up and headed to the airport.
It was Friday evening and fortunately we only ran into traffic near one of the toll plazas. I am not sure, but we suspect there was also some Argentina Cup football games going on around the expressway. When we got to EZE, I could not help but feel I was in a completely different airport. There was no mass confusion or people waiting around like when we arrived. It completely changed my perception of the airport from that of second rate has been to actually not bad. The check-in area looked almost brand new so I am sure they have done a little bit of remodeling.
At the bag check, my bag was slightly over (not a surprise since it barely made the weight limit coming to Argentina) so I separated it out into my main bag and then the duffel. That is the one advantage of International flights is that you are allowed two free bags to check. Mom again got us into the Admiral Lounge in the terminal. It was not as nice as the Dallas one, but was certainly a huge step up from the regular gate area. I called Dad one last time to make sure all was set for picking me up the next day in LA.
Right before boarding the flight, I picked up some snacks and water for plane ride to Miami. I was looking forward to having bottled water at my disposal when they told me at a secondary search point that I could not carry it on the plane. I told them I bought it in the terminal and they said it did not matter. So I looked the guy in the eye and said, OK. I then proceeded to down the entire bottle of water without stopping right in front of him. The lady next to him smiled and laughed and I even got a clap or two from the peanut gallery. Since my allergies had been bothering me all day, I had taken an expired Claratin D and when that did not work, I took and additional Benadryl. I was pretty loopy and was already nodding off as the plane was making its way to the runway. As we started to take off down the runway, we immediately aborted and slowed down. The pilot came on and told us that there was a warning indicator that had come on, and we were going to be towed back to the gate. So much for making my connection in Miami to Los Angeles! We ended up being 70 minutes late for departure.
