The hot Friday-night table in Argentina's capital isn't an Adria-influenced foamfest or a gourmet burger palace. Instead, those with discerning taste buds are lining up at the city's Armenian cultural center for its weekly fundraising supper--and it's not for Jell-o salads and casserole.

You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.

Gray weather doesn't help this particularly gray anti-view from the

Last year, Buenos Aires gadabout Matt Chesterton filled us in on the boutique hotel scene in the city. And wouldn't you know, we needed a place to crash after our long trip to Uruguay. (Our flight was out of Ezeiza airport in BsAs.)

So we looked up La Cayetana, after reading Matt's dead-on description:

Here's a boutique where the designers (Estela Fitere and Silvina Tarrio) have devoted more than 10 minutes and a few phone calls to their scheme. A perfect blend of restored original features (the mosaic floors, the high bare-brick ceilings, the free-standing tubs) and modern conveniences (Wi-Fi, etc).

We really enjoyed our one-night stay, and

Smoke has been pouring into Buenos Aires as a result of fires started by farmers. While the government has blamed the fires on farmers clearing their pastures, the farmers in question claim that the fires were "designed to distract attention from a row over tax rises on farm exports." Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has called the acts "irresponsible." [BBC]

A farmers' strike that has plagued Argentina for more than 2 weeks may be coming to an end. The strike started March 11 as a protest to a 44% export tax that had been implemented by the government on commodities like soy and sunflower seeds (Argentina is the world's 3rd largest exporter of the former). Farmers have since lifted roadblocks that "caused traffic jams and depleted grocery shelves across the country." Representatives of the Argentine Rural Society met with Argentinean government officials Friday in the first of talks hoping to bring the strike to an end. [CNN]

The Faena Hotel + Universe in Buenos Aires has unveiled some new "over the top" suites to its hotel rooms--the F Suite, Tower Suite, and Imperial Suite.

Pictured above is the F Suite which is a 1,291-sq.ft residence located on the 6th floor of hotel. It has two bedrooms, three bathrooms, living and dining rooms, a kitchen, a library and panoramic views of the Faena Art District, embankment and city center of Buenos Aires.

One of the bathrooms sports a rain forest shower and Jacuzzi and the hotel continues to hold onto its geek status by outfitting the room with three 42-inch plasma screens.

More on the other suites after the jump.

While we dawdle around in the US, asking if the airlines would please, maybe, hopefully sorta respect us, passengers in Buenos Aires are letting Aerolineas Argentinas know exactly how they feel. As labor conflicts wear on, delays and cancellations have stranded passengers expressing their feelings by smashing computers and offices while hurling soda cans at weary airline employees.

Thousands of passengers have been stranded at Ministro Pistarini International since Friday when the trouble started. Some news reports blame baggage handlers and pilots for the flight cancellations, though the pilots union says it's members are ready to fly. Passengers suspect that Aerolineas Argentinas is overbooking flights.

It'll take at least another epic summer of delays in the States before we see this kind of rioting at JFK--though it might be the kind of drastic action we need to get our airlines working again. ¡Viva la revolución!

Related Stories:
· Stranded Travelers Riot at Argentine Airport [Gadling]
· Argentine Flight Delays Spark Passenger Violence [Reuters]
· Airport Hell coverage [Jaunted]

Each year we release our Best and Worst Hotel WiFi Lists and in 2007 we decided to add an international component. Using our far-flung contributors and our own experiences, we kicked off a list of hotels with good and bad WiFi policies from Australia to the Argentina.

One hotel stood out the Faena Hotel + Universe in Buenos Aires which ultimately made our Best Geek Hotels in the World list thanks to their savvy tech offerings.

For those looking to surf the web at this hotel, you should be more than satisfied. The entire property has a strong internet connection, 802.11 present throughout, and a healthy bandwidth well into the megs. Topping that,

The "ball-grabbing" (in the words of Matt Chesterton) Faena Hotel + Universe experienced a little turmoil in the cosmos over the weekend.

Page Six reports that rocker Chris Cornell, formerly of Audioslave, and his wife were staying at the upscale hotel when their hotel room was flooded. What?? How does a hotel room far away from a beach get flooded? Here's how:

A pal of Cornell's said, "after performing in front of a sold-out 20,000-capacity arena*, Chris returned to his room and was relaxing with Vicky when the walls started trembling, like in an earthquake. Then, Chris smelled something burning, and suddenly, the entire entrance of the hallway collapsed and gallons of freezing cold water entered

If your dream New Year's Eve celebrations involve a hotel which is hip (or crazy) enough to have a few rooms decked out in Barbie and Hot Wheels themes, then heading south to the Hilton Buenos Aires is the plan for you come December 31.

There's a big event on at the Buenos Aires Hilton if you stay for New Year's Eve and book their special package. You'll get a room facing the lobby, with NYE dinner served on the balcony area so you can watch the lobby show.

After dinner, you're invited to the Buen Ayre ballroom for a post-midnight party, Buenos Aires style (that means hard!). The package also includes private car pick up and