Saturday, November 27, 2010

And we're off!! Day 1!!

Arrived at Pearson at just before noon, decided not to go too far and just sit in the little cafe I've waited in before. Didn't realize until I sat down that I was directly infront of the LAN check in counter. Fantastic! Bought a chocolate croissant and a coffee and settled in to enjoy an hour and a half by myself before meeting the rest of the group.

An obvious but necessary thing to point out: the chocolate croissants at good ol YYZ are not anywhere near as good as the ones in france. 

Eventually after waiting for a while, I saw a pair of women walking past. One looked familiar so I called out to them and asked if they were CUTS people. Thankfully my instincts were right and they were.

Slowly we added people to our group, and when we thought we had everyone we headed to the check in counter. I thought I'd won the "lightest bag" title with only 10.7kg, but was beat out by the agent from victoria with only 8.8kg of stuff. Impressive!

We made our way through customs where the customs agent weirdly and monotonely asked me "are you ready for the trip of a lifetime?" If you've ever seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, picture Pedro all grown up and working the customs desk at an airport. 

Made it to the gate and waited. While waiting we introduced ourselves to the rest of the group. Justin, the rep from GAP adventures joined us and gave out free waterbottles!! Yay free stuff! 

When we finally got on the plane the group was scattered around, but the plane itself wasn't super full. LAN is a great airline, with modern entertainment systems and a nice 2/3/2 layout. 

I slept the majority of the flight from yyz to jfk, waking up at the end with enough time to mash the buttons on the tv and see what movies there were to watch on the long flight from jfk to Lima.

We were informed that we were going to be treated to entry to the Oasis lounge in JFK, so once we landed we all made our way there. I've never had the luxury of free wine, beer and food while waiting on a 4,5 hour connection...with free wifi allowing me to brag to all my friends.

About halfway through the wait, Carolina our LAN rep informed us that there was the slim possibility that a few of us might get bumped to first class due to the flight being oversold. (omg!!) 

To make it fair we drew names to see who would get priority... Justin drew his name first followed by mine... There was likely going to be 4 seats available so I was pretty stoked!! I've never flown in anything but bottom of the barrell economy, so this would be amazing.

Justin and I took great pleasure in rubbing it into everyones face that we were for sure going to be sleeping  on flat out seats and watching movies and eating steak.

Once we got back through security we waited to find out who was going to be the lucky ones. Carolina went up to the desk and we watched her count out a few boarding passes, hand them back and walk back to us solemnly...

Who gets in??!

She looked us with a sad expression and said "no one...." We all pouted... And then she laughed and said "all of us!!!!"

We literally screamed. And immediately shushed ourselves.

Upon boarding we were given champagne, a travel kit with all kinds of goodies, and presented with the menu... I think I'll have the mahi mahi 

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