Anderson South American Adventure Day 4 – Buenos Aires "Hurry Up and Wait" or “Ma’am your son just groped me.” March 7, 2020

We are on the ship, this should have been simple, leave our Airbnb, find a taxi to the cruise port, turn in our luggage, fill out a form and wait our turn. Come one, even if this is the first trip that you have taken with me you know that it was not going to be that easy. Our first night in the Airbnb we slept very well once we got used to the little dog upstairs with the clicking nails on the laminate. Friday night in Buenos Aires is another story. I am not sure where the kids were running around screaming, but we could hear them. There were two young ladies having a conversation on the balcony above ours, not loud but we could here them. A couple came back from a date and had a discussion in the hall. It was in Spanish so I had to make up my own dialogue for it, but eventually he lost and went home. Then someone went out in the hall to make a phone call. I suspect that they were leaning on our door while talking. We were in a double bed, we really do not fit in a double bed. Rob is too tall so he tries to sleep diagonally or his feet hang over the end. We have developed a method. I sleep with my head at the foot of the bed which also put me closer to the A/C. I woke up at 5:50 and kept telling myself to go back to sleep, we did not have to get up early. Yeah, like that works. We got everything packed up and walked down to the bakery on the corner. The other day when we went past we saw cheese croissants in their case. Yeah, that sounded good. Do not get your taste buds all hyped up for something until you see it in the case. Yeah, they were not there. We each got some sort of plain skinny croissant and a whole wheat seeded croissant. They were both very good. We ate the on the balcony so that the seeds did not get all over the apartment or into Rob's computer. We gathered up the leftover seeds and dropped them off the balcony for the birds. We waited for our host. Our plan was to just leave the keys for him and leave. Just as we were getting ready he showed up. He went down to the lobby to let us out. Doh, I forgot that you needed this fob to open the door from inside or outside. We were on a fairly quiet side street and we had not seen a taxi on this street. So we pushed our luggage to the busy street nearby. I said "good-bye" to the crazy cat lady who lives in a trailer on the street. I am not kidding, I think that she modeled for the crazy cat lady on "The Simpsons." We get to the main street and go to the other side of the newspaper stand so that the taxi would have a place to pull over. Last night I asked Rob if he knew the name of the cruise port. I had visions of us getting dumped at some commercial dock. We found the name and I looked up the address. I wrote all of this down on a piece of paper. We were on the sidewalk less than a minute when the first cab pulled over. He rolled down the window so I handed him the piece of paper. He pulled out his reading glasses, looked at the piece of paper and handed it back to me. He said something in Spanish then said "No go, no go." OK. We waved down the next cab which was less than a minute later. The driver pulled over looked at our luggage, shook his head and drove off. I mean he did not even come to a full stop. Sigh. One more minute later and a larger cab pulled up. Rob handed him the paper and he got out to put our luggage in. Oh good, we have a ride. The cruise port is kind of like everything else in Buenos Aires – organized chaos. He stopped and we started to get out. No, no the cab driver gestured that we were to wait, he would get closer to the curb. We get out, get our luggage and Rob tipped him very well. There are people all over pushing/pulling luggage, cabs, buses and cars jockeying for position and everyone is yelling. I could not even tell who everyone was yelling at, but wow, were they yelling. There are two cruise ships loading, MS Zaandam and an MSC so even more confusion. They did have signs and people holding folders that read Holland America. They also had orange ties or scarves on. Always look for the orange. We get in the building. I have all but one bag tagged and have the tag ready. The woman is telling us what to do. Only she is telling us in French. Not sure why, but yeah, that was French. She spoke to other people in Spanish but for some reason she spoke to us in French. She wants us to put the handles of the suitcases down I get that from the hand gestures. Rob is trying to dig out the passports and boarding passes. I reach over to the podium, grab the stapler and put the last tag on. We are handed health forms to fill out and a card with the number 12 on it. We are told that they are currently on 4. OK, we have time to fill out the form and pull ourselves together. It takes a while to find two seats next to each other. We sit down I dig for pens and they call “Number 5 & 12 please report to screening.” We fill out our forms pull things together and then get in line. Oops, wrong line, maybe, not sure. It really would be helpful if one of us spoke Spanish. We change lines. There is a family with two kids in front of us and we start to snake around the line. The mother is holding a little boy about 1.5 years old and Dad is herding a 4 year old girl along. Suddenly I realize the the apx 1.5 year old that the woman is holding is grabbing my breast. After years of removing male hands from various body parts I react quickly. I grab his hand and tuck it back in between he and his mother and say “I’m sorry, I do not know you well enough for this.” I look at Dad’s face and realize that he saw the entire thing and starts to apologize. I assure him that I had kids, I am not upset. The mother now figures out what has happened and she is mortified. I am laughing so she knows that I am not upset, I tell her that I now have a great cruise story to tell. This is a small ship, I know that I will see them again in the next 17 or 31 days depending on which cruise they are on. We get through the X-ray machine, pass through the metal screening, YES, my underwire does not set this one off and we head upstairs, to get into another line. We are given our cruise cards and passport receipts. What? They are taking our passports? We go to the next table, yup, they are taking our passports. We actually could have bypassed this table, they were dealing with a passenger who had a lot of questions. However I also know that if we did not hand in our passports they would come to find us. Now we go down stairs, no explanation, I really just follow everyone else. Usually you have to go up to board the ship. We are not on the ship, in fact I do not see a ship. We stand around and a bus arrives. Oh, it is a port, the ship is not near the terminal and we will be driven there. Gotcha. We sit on the bus as more people board then we start our drive. Commercial ports are not known for their scenic beauty. They pull up next to the ship and get off of the bus. There are crew members at each hand sanitizer station to make sure that we Purel up. They are taking this seriously. And we are on the ship, this was actually faster than usual boarding, just a whole lot more confusing. We head for lunch in the dining room deciding that after that chaos we need calm and quiet rather than the confusion of the Lido. When we return to the room Rob’s big suitcase is waiting, nothing of mine. He of course makes jokes about it. A few minutes later I check the hall and sure enough, there are my suitcases. When you are going on a 31 day cruise you have a lot of stuff. We will also have some cold weather and hot weather. It takes a while but we get everything unpacked and put away. Amazingly we find room for all of it. This is an older ship but there is one extra closet and three drawers in the desk for storage. I had bought a few organizing things to help but have no idea where those damn magnetic hooks or pool lounge chair clips ended up. I know that I kept changing where they would be packed. I would have thought that I would notice them on the bed before we left. After dinner we went to watch “Evita” in the main theater. Neither of us had seen this movie and after seeing various sites in Buenos Aires it was time to see it.