WWSWAD (What would Southwest Airlines do?)

Wednesday March 4, 2008

I have grown used to how Southwest Airlines runs its operation. Conditioned like a gerbil to their needs. Needless to say, when I fly with someone else I compare the experience to SWA. I could not fly on SWA to Brazil. They don’t go there, yet. I opted for American Airlines.

We flew out of San Francisco International. The flight’s departure time was 12:30 PM. Mary and I got up at oh-dark-thirty and headed for Emeryville where we picked up my son, Lee. He drove us to a nearby BART station to take a train to San Francisco airport. BART is showing its age and when it’s in a tube passing another train, it’s louder than a Stone’s concert. Still, we got to the airport for less that bridge toll and gas. Plus, giving my son the car keys for a couple weeks is much cheaper than airport parking.

I found the experience in the terminal to be satisfactory. We picked up the received boarding passes for all the legs in the journey, including the leg from Rio to Brasilia on domestic TAM Airlines. The woman at the American Airline ticket counter claimed that our luggage was checked all the way through too. (Not quite.)

We knew our seats before boarding, that’s kind of nice…until you discover that you are going to be next to a squalling baby for the next four hours, forty-seven minutes, twenty-seven seconds of this leg. Trapped. Thoughts of shoving a pencil through my eardrums ricocheted in my head like marbles on a tile floor.

On Southwest Airlines I could have changed my seat because it’s “sit where there is a seat.”

On the domestic flight, American Airlines sells their snacks. Half a sawbuck for a sandwich, or three bucks for a can of Pringle-style chips, cookies, and a candy bar. We split a sandwich. It tasted good. I cannot remember any more than that.

Our flight from Miami to Rio de Janeiro got out of the gate about forty minutes late. I’m no world traveler, but the few times I’ve flown out of country my flight has been delayed (once by twelve hours). In the air, they never made up the time. The good part is that due to a duplicate seat assignment, we were upgraded to business class. That came in handy at the end of the flight when we had to dash to customs, through the international terminal to baggage to domestic to security to the boarding already TAM flight.

Quarta-Feira 6 Março 2008

We flew TAM Airlines (who, by the way, have arguably the most beautiful aeromoças—stewardesses—in the world) arrived in Brasilia around 1:30 PM local time or about 8:30 in the morning by our Circadian clocks. Sergio and Luciana were there to pick us up. Sergio was a Brazilian exchange student who lived with Colleen, me, and the boys in the mid ‘90s. He is now 29 and to be married on Sabado (Saturday). Luciana is gorgeous as, it seems, most Brazilian women are. While at the airport we tried to convert American Express traveler’s checks into Brazilian Reals (Reais in Portuguese) with no luck.

Brasilia-A Bit of History

Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer designed Brasilia in the mid-1950’s and much of it was constructed in three years (1959-1961). And, like Washington, DC, it looks good on the map (the outline is of an airplane and the cidade is laid out in a grid pattern norte-sul-este-oeste). On the ground the effect is not unlike Disneyland’s Autopia with overpasses and underpasses criss-crossing everywhere. All the road signs are in Portuguese. Pare (stop) signs and lane markings are merely suggestions. Many roads didn’t even bother with lane lines. Brazilians straddle lanes to create new ones when the need strikes them. Despite the apparent anarchy, (or freedom if you’re of a Libertarian bent) we saw only one accident.

We went to the suburb of Agua Claras (clean water) where Sergio and his brother Rodrigo live and went to Rodrigo’s (pronounced Hoe-drig-go) apartamento and met Sergio’s mother, two aunts, and cousin stocking the pantry for us. They assigned us Rodrigo’s room and told us to make ourselves at home.

So I did.

I tested the multi-outlet surge protector we brought with us and in a flash of light and smoke, blew out the apartment’s electrical panel. In this part of Brazil, 220 is used. Later, I discovered Rodrigo’s line conditioner that reduces 220 to 110 for all our electrical toys: camera, laptop, AlphaSmart Dana, Palm Pilots, etc. Phew.

After a much needed nap, we went to dinner at a local churrascaria called Buffalo Bio’s. A churrascaria is a meat eater’s paradise. They had the standard salad, seafood, casserole buffet. They had a sushi bar. But the churrascaria’s allure is in the skewers of meat the staff bring around until you say “nao mais.” (there should be a “~” over the a in nao but I can’t seem to produce one). In addition to the mignon, lamb, sausage, pork, chicken, etc., one skewer has chicken curaçaos—yikes!