Wouldn’t you LOVE to live in this apartment in Buenos Aires? We thought we would, too, and in the first blush of arriving in that far-away city we were so thrilled that the guy holding the “Martin” sign was waiting for us at the airport, that he knew how to get us to our apartment, and that the beautiful, charming young manager was waiting for us outside the building that we completely let our adult selves nod off and our teenaged excited, worry-free selves take over.

This is how the CHECK IN list was born. After the delightful manager skipped happily down the hallway and disappeared into the sometimes-fretful elevator we began to discover all the things we failed to ask about and try out while we still had her in our clutches. She left town almost immediately on urgent business and we were left with no working coffee pot, an air conditioner whose on/off switch became a grail-like quest, a telephone we did’t know how to use, and no idea how to ask anyone for help…