Winter to Summer in 12 short hours

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.