2012-10-31_BsAs2BP | |
A quick travel diary: Buenos Aires-Budapest, 2012.10.31. For those readers who thrive academic accuracy: the pictures are shown as the time of Buenos Aires (UTC-3). One of the reasons are I ain't want to do the conversions, secondly neither wanted to build mathematical equations to follow the changes of the time zones and the change of the DST back and forth.
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The airport shuttle | |
The story started here, with a two hours bus cruise and the magic of Houdini. Later a few other advancements happened, like the impossibility to buy foreign currencies, the Demons of the Customs in Black Coats and so forth - even the oracles of Delphi giggled and followed the doubtlessly jolly good travel in their crystal balls. All beyond, the value-added fun was the logistics of getting to the airport, but to my greatest joy this was an easier maneuver, because I already have the knowledge of how. Generally there are three possibilities to consume the distance between the downtown and the airport:
Of course let's be more realistic, nobody participates in oversee travels with a handbag, further the joy of dragging backpacks quite depends on the personal tolerance levels. So the only possibility we have left is the remis/cab, for which I cannot tell exact prices now but they are expensive with local eyes: 150-200ARS/28.11-37.48USD for one ride. For tourists this may not be a huge amount, but if you want to save a little bit, then choose the shuttle - so did I. There are many companies who compete for the grace of the passengers, for me the Aerobus Ezeiza ended as the winner. Regarding to their latest fares, one ride without luggage costs 28ARS/5.24USD, with one 55ARS/10.30USD and with two it's 75ARS/14.05USD - which is still under the price of the cabs or remises. The further significant advantage is that their meeting point is here, on the Belgrano Avenue. When you go to the airport, this means the van nicely rolls down to the Avenida 25 de Mayo highway, where with a constant speed you'll be on the airport in an about 30 minutes. So you can calculate easily with the timing, no waiting in traffic jams while the clock of the cab ticks. |
On the airport | |
So after closing the flat I dove into a taxi to reach the meeting point on Belgrano about at 11am: the shuttle leaving at 11:15am just seemed correct. The luggage was arranged then we hasted to the airport on the highway (the total cost with the taxi was 113ARS). After leaving the city, the massive amount of water was still visible on both sides of the highway, due to the enormous raining at that time. I went directly to the BA counter on the airport, dropped down the luggage and the extremely nice lady even printed out the boarding pass for me between London-Budapest - in the case should I not have the time during the 90 minutes between the two flights. |
Halfway | |
Sky Chefs. Well, I'll direct some plain words toward them... Engines, even more imposing than the average. |
Security and boarding | |
Then I wandered for some time on the 1st Floor, then headed toward the administrative businesses. Passport and travel documents checking, where are two lines: one for the international people, the other for the citizens of the Mercosur region. I'm not a citizen but have the residency permit, so I stepped into the queue to the latter counter and repeatedly smirked in myself over the eternal inviability of my DNI: This DNI is expired.- said the lady. Yes, unfortunately I don't have the new card yet, but the extension of the validity was stamped into my passport. I handed it to her, she took, looked at, rotated and sniffed it. Few minutes passed by, she asked for a colleague and again a few more minutes later for the pleasure of all of us finally she stamped the exit date into the passport. Customs: as a law-abiding citizen I stepped to the queue to tell the tale of my little backpack: the Canon compact camera is boring, the BlackBerry is nothing (only the iPhone, that's smuggled), but the lenses, the flash and the camera got onto the paper: OM121, the document of legality printed from a re-scanned document. |
Finally on the airplane | |
Happy smirking, it seems that I'll tyrannize the whole row. Naturally this wasn't the case, a man sat into the aisle seat, but I still didn't complain of course. Everything you wanted to know about the passenger console of the Boeing 747 but were afraid to ask. No more awkward moments before the superhot flight attendants:
The blanket isn't a bad idea either, the flight over the sea during the night is quite chilly. There was a more or less 10 minutes delay with the takeoff, but finally a picture shot before leaving Buenos Aires. |
Buenos Aires and its endless blocks. | |
Weather report | |
The dinner | |
Some sponge cake (it didn't contain alcohol, but after its coherence, I qualified as semi-dry) with vanilla cream, bakery stuff, boiled vegetables and chicken breast. A wine, water and coke. I didn't understand it well, why the male stewardess offered the people a small vodka, but latter when I stared the outside happenings they told me If it's not a trouble, please pull down the shade, so the people in the middle row can sleep.I reached the ultimate step of spiritual enlightenment: the sedated passengers ain't cause a trouble. Some kind of salad, unfortunately I cannot visualize the origin of this thing...something corny? |
Mountains of cloud pillars over Brazil and duvet of fog. | |
Upps, the wine has gone. More cloud pillars and I drank the sunshine with anarchic disobedience. If you watch the top layer, they're the icebergs of Antarctica. If the lower, it's a river under the sunset. We reached the height of Rio de Janeiro about 17:05, around 18:25 at Salvador in a slight storm. The charming inner voice of the adventurers commiserated with the middle row: if they are without a view, at least let them slumber so I pulled down the shade. A big gasp of air...from this point Heathrow is about 7,560 km. |
...and reaching the other side of the ocean | |
Soothing, watching movies (Prometheus, Dark Shadows) in the dark shadows over the Atlantic Ocean. Later arrival to the Northern Hemisphere: -52 Celsius outside. |
Heathrow | |
Luckily we arrived punctually, albeit there was some delay during leaving the plane and taking the shuttles between the terminals; but with hasted steps I arrived to the Terminal 3 on time. I ran through the securities, all had the green light and I continue the daily exercises of Michael Johnson. Finally reached the gate at 7:29am, were opened at 7:35am. Bingo, waiting for the embarkation. |
By half past 8, heading to Budapest | |
The moments of delusive tricks after the boarding, but finally I had all the row for myself. Water reservoirs to the south from the airport. Not even the eagle-eyed people could spot it on this small image, but the Tower is there. Breakfast: tin but drinkable orange juice. Egg and watercress. Well, I don't know if the watercress is like the spinach, that you have to get used to its flavour but this was impossible as the mission to rescue our mankind by the scientology. Probably this vegetable lacks any kind of flavours or the Sky Chefs removed all the cressand left only the waterin the mouth. The plain words. I'm one of those people who happily see the inelasticity of the consistent values, which keep their identities over the years. The coffee of BA is such. Anyone ever boarded an airplane, and did not mingle in the aura of the First and Business classes could elaborate with deep pain the quality of the flying coffee. I myself mentioned such as well - coffee powder without any strength in handwarm water- and now I noticed with a crippled smile that after 2 years the coffee has just the completely same quality; even more seeing the trend and the inelasticity, this seem to stay in the future as well. People with elevated sense of justice, please keep yourself seated and have the seatbelt fastened: no steaming, freshly grinded Colombian coffee is expected, but what's the source for BA of this consistently bad coffee, I cannot tell. Even the very last coffee machine makes a better drink. Since I didn't have any other specific mission or task to do, I figured out the explanation during the flight. It is fundamentally possible that one of the most expensive, Black Ivory coffee beans are used, but during the processing they must pay meticulous attention to not grind the coffee beans but the elephant shit. This idea is confirmed by the caption, praising the 100% protection of the rainforests. Hello little boys and girls, this isn't the correct posture on the airplanes. |
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