Text 16683, 90 rader
Skriven 2014-09-05 23:25:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: BsAs trip 916
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I'd been told, I think,  by the cutish desk girl (she seemed
to understand a little English but speak none, the exact
counterposition to mine) that breakfast was from 7 to 9, and
she suggested 8; so I showed up at 8 - the place was
deserted, but some provisions were available on the counter.

Strange phenomenon I've encountered in the tropics - the
orange juice is cut and in general not very good. Here it
was orange drink, not juice, negligible fruit content.
Water, tea, and coffee were also available.

Bread and jam; also Maria Pascual cookies, which tasted like
the arrowroot biscuits that you used to give to teething
infants.

The water pressure was okay now - I figure someone else must
have been also taking a shower last night when I tried.

The 10 am shuttle to the airport got me right on time;
getting there takes just a couple minutes, as the one
way traffic is on our side now. With the Premier Access
checkin line and an apparently secret security that allowed
me to bypass the shops, I was at the Copa Club before 1020.

A large enough facility that looks like United Clubs
everywhere; incredibly crowded. Breakfast catering about
the skimpiest I've seen. Coffee, water, yogurt, bagels.
No fresh fruit, no OJ. But the bar is free, and the vino
tinto is less bad than at the United Club or on the plane.

The wi-fi has an absurdly long password, but it works fine.

CM 279 PTY EZE 1210 2118 738 2A

As often has been the case lately, we loaded up around
scheduled departure time. As usual, there were a bunch of
Premier Access crashers, who were greeted with rolleyes
but allowed to board.

Seats are sort of lumpy and too upright in the upright
position but still better than the Continental seats.
They reminded me of the 762 business class of ancient times,
with their manual footrests and balky mechanical controls.
A big plus was these huge video screens, hard to wrestle out
of their resting spot and harder to cram back in. As I tried
the latter, my seatmate joked that you had to go to Harvard
to figure the thing out. I told him that didn't help. Good
resolution and an okay choice of video entertainment, though
the ones I was interested in were mostly Spanish-only. Music
selection was really lame, though, almost as bad as the
United longhaul choice, which is none and none, even in biz.

Copa reuses its menus, so my information is not quite so
exact as it might have been.

We had a choice of chicken, I think in that South American
stewy dish with corn that I hate, or roasted shrimp.

The shrimp tasted pretty decent - pity there were only three
of them, at .75 oz x 2 and about .5 oz x 1, served with
three chunks of yuca about the size of the shellfish. A fair
amount of bruised and thus extra rank cilantro, which could
be washed off with the melted butter that came in a little
cup on the side. I had some kind of generic South American
Sem-Chard that tasted not too bad with the shrimp but that
burned my throat (which has been sore these last days).

Dessert: ice cream sundaes or some weird cake. I had ice
cream with caramel sauce. The ice cream tasted as though it
had been made with powdered milk and had those sandy
crystals on the outside. The caramel was good.

Hennessy VS is the house brandy. As it was on the cart and
the 12-year-old rum they are supposed to have was not, I
had some. It was okay, and I got a second glass to gargle
with. Amaretto di Saronno and Bailey's (in a huge bottle)
were also available.

Two hours before landing a deli plate - a small roll, a
couple Wheatsworth crackers, a slice each of young Cheddar,
young Gouda, young smoked Gouda, Italian-style salami, and
smoked deli turkey. None of it good, none of it bad. A glass
of extremely ordinary Malbec washed it down.
                        
We landed bumpily and on time. There was a fair amount of
applause out in the back.

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