We'd managed to get into business class for this flight, and United has recently upgraded it's international business class seats. The seats now resemble a self contained pod, with the seat facing a 15 inch entertainment screen. They're laid out such that the seats lay flat, so sleeping should be easier. (It would have been a bit better if they'd also upgraded the pillow and the blanket - their p.s. business class - SF/LA - JFK have better blankets - but it was nice. There isn't however much storage space in the seat, and absolutely nowhere to keep a carry on, as I discovered when I brought mine down. It keep stopping the seat from doing it's moving magic.
One of the things United offers is the ability to listen to cockpit communications, and the pilot had told us that would be available. It was, until the end of the safety video. Then it went to music. We'd pulled out on time, but where sitting on a taxiway when the pilot came on and said there was a minor fuel pump problem and we were going back to the gate. He expected it to be fixed quickly. We sat at the gate for about 15 minutes, and I checked back with the "From the cockpit" audio channel. It was back on, so I suspect that it was off while they discussed the technical problem. The pilot got back on and told us it was fixed but he wanted to top off the fuel. (I already knew that because I listen to the cockpit audio). The net result was a 1 hour delay. I spent the waiting time playing Tetris, badly, on my entertainment system.
The flight is about 10.5 hours. We flew over the southern US, Bermuda, the Bahamas and Cuba. After the Caribbean, we entered South America over Columbia. At that point, I tried to get some sleep, so don't know when we actually crossed the Equator. I woke up at around 10am local time. I knew we were supposed to land at 11:40, and I was surprised the crew hadn't started the morning coffee service or the light breakfast. They did soon after, but rushed us through. We were descending rapidly by the time they cleaned up all the service items.
The runway system at the airport in BA was interesting because there seemed to be a lot of runways, separated by fields, as we could see lots of planes in the distance. Eventually we got to a gate, and off the plane. The first thing that struck me in the jetway was the heat and humidity. It's hot and humid here.
Immigration was a two step affair. First, US, Canadian and Australian citizens were put in a separate line. At the end of December, Argintina finally implemented what they call a reciprocity fee - a fee equivalent to what Argentinos have to pay to come to those countries. They've been talking about it for a couple of years, but with the economy down, they didn't implement. We were hoping they'd wait til February, but no such luck. We paid the fee and now each have a sticker on a back page of our passport that lets us return without paying again for 10 years. I guess we'll be back.
Next it was a quick visit to immigration to get the passport stamped.
That entire process was pretty efficient, actually. There were several agents at each station and a number board flashed when one became available. We were off the plane early so the whole thing took maybe 10-15 minutes.
We waited for our bags. This was strange part - the baggage claim was ground level, and it was simply a baggage carousel that went out the back of the building and came back in. The carts rolled up and the put the bags on. It reminded me of some of the midwest regional airports, or Ontario California's old 5 gate airport. It really didn't make sense that a major international airport has that.
Once we got our bags, we saw the customs people. They were xraying some bags, but in our case they just waved us by. We still have the customs form, since they didn't ask for that.
We'd been given a map of the meeting point by our travel agent who arranged our transfer from the airport. There was a big sign and our name would be on a lit board. Instead, we walked out to a small terminal and a guy holding up a sign like you normally see. The mystery of baggage claim was solved. It turns out we landed at the domestic terminal (Making the customs experience even more impressive, actually) and not the international.
Our driver quickly got his car, and we went to the hotel. He gave information about the city as we went by. On arrival to the hotel we found out that not only was our room ready at 1pm, but we'd been upgraded to a junior suite on the floor with the executive lounge. It's a nice room, with certain European touches, including needing a room key to turn on the lights, and the bidet next to the toilet.
We rested a bit, and then wandered around near the hotel. The hotel is in centrally located part of BA, at the Plaza San Martin. It's right next to the Florida street pedestrian mall, and not far from many things. Because we were tired, we just walked around the plaza, then down Florida street and around a few blocks. I'll add pictures later. Because we were so tired, we just had dinner at a nearby restaurant that was French and Italian ish. It got good reviews in the the guidebooks, but thought it was good, but not great. One thing I'm learning pretty quickly is that food here may be prepared diffently than it would be at home. Coffee is certainly different, and pretty much like you'd get in Europe - very strong.
We were back at the hotel by 9:30, and, after email, and posting yesterday's blog entry we went to bed early for our 8am wake up call.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Lost in Maryland and a Capital time
Our day on Thursday started early, as we had a tour at the Capital scheduled for noon, and we needed about 70 minutes to get there. The real deciding factor was the hotel breakfast - that ended at 9:30. Between eating, chatting with the hotel staff and demonstrating Argentine Tango we didn't leave until about 10:40. Cutting it a bit close, but even my estimate built in time.
First stop -CVS. We'd been advised not to park at the nearest Metro station because it usually has no available parking after about 8 am. I'd gone onto google maps and printed out directions to the White Flint Station, in Bethesda, MD. However, that station only accepts something called a Smart Trip card - which is an RFID card you can use to pay for parking and fares. The parking structure only accepts that. Naturally, you can't buy the cards at most stations - that would make too much sense. So the CVS stop to buy the card was required.
The fun started after that. We hit unexpected traffic due to construction lane closures. That pretty much killed our extra time. We could still make it if we didn't any other traffic.
However, we didn't bring want to bring our GPS (we have enough stuff) so instead I printed out Google directions. They got us slightly lost the night before, but ever optimistic I was reassured by the hotel clear's assessment that it really was because of construction and all internet directions were wrong.
We made it to Maryland just fine. The fun started when we left the freeway. We made the first couple of turns correctly, but then couldn't find the street that the GPS recommended. We figured we'd missed it, so went in the right general direction. After driving a while, we found the Rockville Pike or something. Yay - the Metro station is on that. We figured we'd overshot our street, so we turned right. Apparently, the street was further than we thought, and so turning right didn't immediately find it. We did, however pass the same interstate we got off of. Then - yay - a Metro sign. No yay - it was the station inside the NIH - and they probably didn't want us parking there. We continued on. Eventually, we wound up in Bethesda, south of the station we needed. At that point, we stopped in a gas station and they told us to back the way we came - 2 miles. At that point it was very clear we were going to be late. I called the Congressman's office and the staffer who answered looked up the location for us. We did eventually find it, and made it to our tour almost an hour late.
Fortunately, January is not the busy time at the Capital, so Vince, the staffer who arranged this for me was still able to take us. He also brought along their new intern. We did want to say hello to the Congressman but Congress was out for the week so he was home in CA. I'll have to catch him next time he has a fundraising party at my moms. The tour was interesting - a private tour may not cover much more than the public tour, but you do have a great opportunity to ask any question you want. We learned how congress members evaluate bills so they can vote intelligently and about who sits where for joint sessions. We also got to sit in the Gallery for the House of Representatives, which may not be available on the public tour. The tour took about 2 hours. Afterwords we stopped by the office our Congresswoman - Anna Eschoo, but she too is in CA.
Before leaving our tour, we'd asked Vince to recommend some restaurants in walking distance. He pointed out a couple on Pennsylvania Ave (and suggested we avoid the Burrito place - he's also from the Bay Area). One of the places he recommended was Good Eats, a burger place. We decided it might be a while before we could get a good burger (before you all jump down my throat I sad good burger, not good beef!) so we went there. The restaurant had a copy of the Top Chep cookbook displayed. Then I noticed the menu had things like "Spike's Rosemany/Thyme Fries" (outstanding btw). Click! I've heard of this restaurant - Spike, a chef from a previous season of Top Chef is the owner/chef and that's where I'd seen it.
The burgers were also great and the milkshakes were good - and interesting. Glen's was a milky way shake - chocolate caramel and something else swirled - what flavor you got depended where you put the straw. I opted for toasted marshmallow- the shake had marshmallow bits floating in it. I hope to eat there again.
It was 4pm by this time, and so we decided to head back to the car and to the airport. It was a bit earlier than necessary, but the delay of the tour really made it too late to do a second thing.
An interesting thing happened on the way out of the metro station. Remember that Smart Trip card? CVS only had 10.00 cards. Because of the time of day, I figured I'd need to add money to it to cover both my fare and the parking. We didn't have time going in, so I figured I'd do it going out. However, there was nowhere before exiting to add money. I asked the agent, and he swiped the card, told me there wasn't enough on it to pay the fare. I was confused about that, because there should have been enough, and I learned that on the 10.00 card I bought, 5 of it was a charge for the card. I asked how I'd get out. He said swipe it, it will let you out but you'll have a negative balance. That worked, but here's my question. All I did was buy the card with cash. They have no idea who I am. I did have to bring it back up because I needed it for parking, but if not, how would they know? Strange. Oh well, getting out of the parking lot was easy.
We gassed up the car, and headed to the airport, since there wasn't really enough time to do anything else. We arrived with 4 hours before our flight. Thanks to an airport employee who know a store worker with a box cutter, I was able to get some suitcase locks opened (I've heard stories of things being stolen out of outside suitcase pockets, etc) and we headed to the Red Carpet to wait it out. We spent a bit of time with another one of our online cruise friends who were on our flight and I made some final farewell calls to my family (I will stay in touch via the web) and we headed to the plane.
First stop -CVS. We'd been advised not to park at the nearest Metro station because it usually has no available parking after about 8 am. I'd gone onto google maps and printed out directions to the White Flint Station, in Bethesda, MD. However, that station only accepts something called a Smart Trip card - which is an RFID card you can use to pay for parking and fares. The parking structure only accepts that. Naturally, you can't buy the cards at most stations - that would make too much sense. So the CVS stop to buy the card was required.
The fun started after that. We hit unexpected traffic due to construction lane closures. That pretty much killed our extra time. We could still make it if we didn't any other traffic.
However, we didn't bring want to bring our GPS (we have enough stuff) so instead I printed out Google directions. They got us slightly lost the night before, but ever optimistic I was reassured by the hotel clear's assessment that it really was because of construction and all internet directions were wrong.
We made it to Maryland just fine. The fun started when we left the freeway. We made the first couple of turns correctly, but then couldn't find the street that the GPS recommended. We figured we'd missed it, so went in the right general direction. After driving a while, we found the Rockville Pike or something. Yay - the Metro station is on that. We figured we'd overshot our street, so we turned right. Apparently, the street was further than we thought, and so turning right didn't immediately find it. We did, however pass the same interstate we got off of. Then - yay - a Metro sign. No yay - it was the station inside the NIH - and they probably didn't want us parking there. We continued on. Eventually, we wound up in Bethesda, south of the station we needed. At that point, we stopped in a gas station and they told us to back the way we came - 2 miles. At that point it was very clear we were going to be late. I called the Congressman's office and the staffer who answered looked up the location for us. We did eventually find it, and made it to our tour almost an hour late.
Fortunately, January is not the busy time at the Capital, so Vince, the staffer who arranged this for me was still able to take us. He also brought along their new intern. We did want to say hello to the Congressman but Congress was out for the week so he was home in CA. I'll have to catch him next time he has a fundraising party at my moms. The tour was interesting - a private tour may not cover much more than the public tour, but you do have a great opportunity to ask any question you want. We learned how congress members evaluate bills so they can vote intelligently and about who sits where for joint sessions. We also got to sit in the Gallery for the House of Representatives, which may not be available on the public tour. The tour took about 2 hours. Afterwords we stopped by the office our Congresswoman - Anna Eschoo, but she too is in CA.
Before leaving our tour, we'd asked Vince to recommend some restaurants in walking distance. He pointed out a couple on Pennsylvania Ave (and suggested we avoid the Burrito place - he's also from the Bay Area). One of the places he recommended was Good Eats, a burger place. We decided it might be a while before we could get a good burger (before you all jump down my throat I sad good burger, not good beef!) so we went there. The restaurant had a copy of the Top Chep cookbook displayed. Then I noticed the menu had things like "Spike's Rosemany/Thyme Fries" (outstanding btw). Click! I've heard of this restaurant - Spike, a chef from a previous season of Top Chef is the owner/chef and that's where I'd seen it.
The burgers were also great and the milkshakes were good - and interesting. Glen's was a milky way shake - chocolate caramel and something else swirled - what flavor you got depended where you put the straw. I opted for toasted marshmallow- the shake had marshmallow bits floating in it. I hope to eat there again.
It was 4pm by this time, and so we decided to head back to the car and to the airport. It was a bit earlier than necessary, but the delay of the tour really made it too late to do a second thing.
An interesting thing happened on the way out of the metro station. Remember that Smart Trip card? CVS only had 10.00 cards. Because of the time of day, I figured I'd need to add money to it to cover both my fare and the parking. We didn't have time going in, so I figured I'd do it going out. However, there was nowhere before exiting to add money. I asked the agent, and he swiped the card, told me there wasn't enough on it to pay the fare. I was confused about that, because there should have been enough, and I learned that on the 10.00 card I bought, 5 of it was a charge for the card. I asked how I'd get out. He said swipe it, it will let you out but you'll have a negative balance. That worked, but here's my question. All I did was buy the card with cash. They have no idea who I am. I did have to bring it back up because I needed it for parking, but if not, how would they know? Strange. Oh well, getting out of the parking lot was easy.
We gassed up the car, and headed to the airport, since there wasn't really enough time to do anything else. We arrived with 4 hours before our flight. Thanks to an airport employee who know a store worker with a box cutter, I was able to get some suitcase locks opened (I've heard stories of things being stolen out of outside suitcase pockets, etc) and we headed to the Red Carpet to wait it out. We spent a bit of time with another one of our online cruise friends who were on our flight and I made some final farewell calls to my family (I will stay in touch via the web) and we headed to the plane.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
And we're off!
Here I am at the Red Carpet Club in SFO. We board in about 30 minutes, and so far the flight is on time. We had a nice experience here. When we checked in yesterday, we were unable to check in for the 2nd flight, probably because it left over 24 later than the first flight. I had some time to kill, so I asked the agent if we could check in now.
We could and did, which was nice because it's one less thing to do in the hotel tonight, but it was also fun. The agent asked why we were going to Argentina. I told her, and we chatted a bit. Turns out she has a house there. She is actually from Uraguay, and was thrilled to here we we'd be going to Montevideo. She suggested we visit a resort where the celebrities have houses, but we've got something already planned. However, when we told her where we were staying, she gave us a recommendation for a breakfast place nearby. It's written down and saved. I'll let you know in a few days if we go there.
It's hard to believe that after all this planning and preparation, we're officially on our way. And, if you're wondering, I did get everything into the bags, and only removed about 4-5 things. In retrospect, maybe I should have bought a slightly bigger suitcase for trips like this when I know I'll be checking. Oh well, live and learn.
It's almost time to board, so I'll sign off now. More tomorrow, after what should be a very fun day.
We could and did, which was nice because it's one less thing to do in the hotel tonight, but it was also fun. The agent asked why we were going to Argentina. I told her, and we chatted a bit. Turns out she has a house there. She is actually from Uraguay, and was thrilled to here we we'd be going to Montevideo. She suggested we visit a resort where the celebrities have houses, but we've got something already planned. However, when we told her where we were staying, she gave us a recommendation for a breakfast place nearby. It's written down and saved. I'll let you know in a few days if we go there.
It's hard to believe that after all this planning and preparation, we're officially on our way. And, if you're wondering, I did get everything into the bags, and only removed about 4-5 things. In retrospect, maybe I should have bought a slightly bigger suitcase for trips like this when I know I'll be checking. Oh well, live and learn.
It's almost time to board, so I'll sign off now. More tomorrow, after what should be a very fun day.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Packing the night away
Just a quick note. We leave tomorrow, so tonight was spent packing. In spite of the fact that we'll have free laundry on the cruise, I still have a lot of stuff. I suspect once I get all my makeup, etc packed I'll have to remove some more things. Oh well.
I have an early day tomorrow, so off to bed; more interesting stuff later.
I have an early day tomorrow, so off to bed; more interesting stuff later.
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