To Antarctica - New Year's 2011

Back in February we received a catalog from National Geographic detailing all of their tours for the year. We were immediately drawn to their Antarctic cruise (Rick had conveniently left the catalog open to that page on the counter). We had been talking about going to Antarctica for over 10 years and this seemed like the time to do it, so the next morning we called and booked a room.

We spent Christmas in Tampa visiting Randy's family and had a great time. The day after Christmas we headed to the Tampa airport around 6pm.  After check-in we had dinner and a drink at the gate, then an hour flight to Miami. The lounge in Miami was pretty quiet, we did some reading and had another drink. Our flight was delayed about an hour and a half (they said the plane was "very dirty" ?!). Just before boarding a woman walked up and started talking to us. After a few minutes it became clear that she had had a bit to drink, was just looking to talk and had seen two gay guys she thought would be fun to talk with; her family was hanging out about 20 feet away, clearly they were happy she was talking to us instead of them. Once on board she went away and left us to settle in. American's first class was very nice (the seat even rotates 90° to face a desk). We had a light dinner, watched a bit of TV, then went to sleep. 

We got a solid 5 or 6 hours sleep before landing in Buenos Aires. A car took us in to the city to the Caesar Park Hotel were we checked in for the cruise. We had just enough time to grab some lunch before a 2pm city tour departed from the hotel. The tour made three stops. The first was in the La Boca neighborhood, where we saw some nice local art. The second was at the presidential office, which had the famous balcony where Eva Perone addressed the people. 

The third stop was at the Recoleta Cemetary, where we saw a number of mausoleums, including Eva Perone's. The final stop on the tour was at a restaurant where the whole tour group had a tasty dinner. Afterwards we walked a block back to the hotel, watched the final episode of American Horror Story (which we thoroughly enjoyed), and then got a good night's sleep.