Indigo in Buenos Aires: New Year – Jan 1, 2007
What a way to start 2007! Phil, Grant and I all hope you and your families have a happy and healthy 2007 and that we get to see all of you during the coming year. We all started the new year by sleeping late and mostly hanging around the whole day. I am beginning to feel like I need to get home to get back to a regular schedule and be done with all these late nights. But I have had a wonderful time here and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Today is the day Grant and I leave so Hugo came to pick us up about 8PM for our 11:15PM plane. When we got there, we were informed that our plane had been “rescheduled” and was now leaving at 1AM. To make a long painful story short, it didn’t actually take off until 3AM. After we checked in, Hugo told us we had to go pay the departure tax. Good thing he was with us since no one at the ticket counter had mentioned this to us. But we got that done and Hugo walked us up to security. We gave him tearful hugs good-bye; he had helped to make our trip so enjoyable and so much easier. Grant and I hung around the Aerolineas Argentina lounge for a while–much nicer than the terminal–and we finally got on the plane. Believe me, it’s not worth revisiting the hassles that occurred before we got on the plane. Again, Grant was a great traveling companion–never really complained–and he slept almost all the way; they never did make him put his seat all the way up. We got to Miami the next morning about 9AM and were so happy to get on our charter plane to fly back to Jacksonville with no hassles. Customs and immigration were a breeze and as always, it was great to be back in this country.
When we arrived here, we went straight to the driver’s license agency on Beach Boulevard because Grant had lost his driver’s license in Jacksonville before we left. Surprisingly, that went rather smoothly. He, of course, visited with friends that last night and then the next morning, January 3, flew back to school. All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas vacation and I know we will both remember it forever. Now back to reality.