Saturday, May 30, 2015

Amsterdam and Lima - May 2015


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TK 80 SFO-IST 773 J

A bit of crazyness at SFO to get a boarding pass, waiting 90 min in the business/star gold line. The economy line looked to be about 100 deep and barely moving. Going to guess growing pains as TK just launched this route. Ended up delayed about an hour waiting for everyone to check in. No security line for a 6:30pm scheduled departure. A mobile boarding pass would have been a huge improvement but apparently they needed to physically scan passports. I did receive a mobile boarding pass for my IST-AMS connection when I checked in online but SFO prints a paper pass anyway...

Nice flight. Very good wifi the entire flight which was helpful to kill time. I only snacked, no meals and the cheese was ok. Food looked good overall. Wine was decent with a couple red and white choices. Service was attentive but a slight bit awkward. Got 5-6 hours of sleep which was very helpful. Power and headphone (two prong) under the middle armrest.

The lounge in IST was nice but very busy upstairs so I went downstairs which was a bit better. Olive bar was a little disappointing. Mezze bar was good but the other food was pretty uninteresting. Good wifi in the lounge as well.

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TK 1195 IST-AMS 321 J

Very quick boarding. Not much legroom in business, just the middle seat blocked. Good food on this flight. Right on time. Landed on the close runway at AMS. Less than a 5 min wait for immigration to open new lanes. Uber pick up at the Sheraton across the street from the arrivals and I was at my hotel in under an hour after touchdown at 22:30.

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Amsterdam 

Went out for a wander around AMS on arrival and had a couple drinks then amazingly slept from 1:30 to 10:00 which helped reset my clock. Woke up the 2nd night from about 4:30 to 6:00. The Andaz Pricegeracht was very nice. Had a great room with a canal view. Good bar where, as with every other bar in Amsterdam, they featured a wide variety of gin and tonics. Yelp was very helpful for restaurants and other things, like finding a laundromat.

For the love of god, buy Rijksmuseum tickets online. The line was wrapped around inside the building and far down the street outside, but with the pdf on my phone from buying online, zero lines to wait in. Museum itself was very crowded as well, but the ship modeling and other temporary exhibits in the bottom floor were interesting

Restaurants and Bars

Mossel Gin - fantastic mussels and gin cocktails. had oysters and calamari as well. just great
Butcher's Tears - good beers, both theirs and the guest taps. cheese plate has a *lot* of cheese :)
de Biertun - great beer selection. good snacks. did not get to try the food as they do not serve from 2:30 to 5:30 or something along those lines
Staring at Jacob - good American style Sunday brunch 
Restaurant de kas - great setting. good food. very reasonable wine list.
Restaurant Shiva - very good Indian. Not fooling around with heat on the vindaloo. good pickles 
Cafe Toussant - nice cafe for a couple lunches. really liked the tomato soup, the salmon bread, and I think there was a good salad involved one afternoon
Bar Oldendorf - good cocktails. nice people. pricey at €17 each, but that was unfortunately common at similar places
Wurst & Schnitzel - Good schnitzel. liked the bratwusrst a little less. the potato salad and fried potatoes were a little meh
Sampurna - indonesian - just ok. would probably find something else next trip


Additional Amsterdam Photos - $1.12 per 1 euro for this trip.


KL 743 AMS-LIM 773 J (KLM Asia on tail)

Mobile boarding pass really worked for this flight. 28 min from getting in an uber at the Andaz to the KL lounge, which was boring, almost UA red carpet-esque. Food was sliced cheese and salami along with some cereal and dried fruit for breakfast. Had a bloody mary which was fine. Under construction so might improve. Flight was ok, but no wifi. OK movie selection. For the TV series, they had one episode per series. This could be so much better. Headphone jacks (three prongs) were under middle armrest which made them a bit annoying. Power on front of middle armrest. Lunch finished about 2.5 hours from takeoff, followed about 90 min later by a snack (ice cream, cheese, veggie something). With about 3:30 left in the flight we were back over land entering South America over Guyana

Lima

Not a particularly attractive city but Miraflores and San Isidro were nice. Lunch starts late and runs late in Lima. The Westin Lima was a good hotel, pretty much what you would expect from a Westin in a city. Nice executive lounge on the 29th floor. Breakfast buffet on the first floor was good but a bit boring after five days.

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Pescados Capitales - Great ceviche, pulpo, grilled fish, and drinks. Just great.
La Carreta on Ricardo Rivera Navarrete - San Isidro. Love the Rafael sauce (dijon and peppercorn) on a steak and paps rosti. So good.
El Hornero - Francisco Masias 505 - San Isidro. Good steaks and salmon here as well.
Astrid y Gaston - pass. 3.5 hours of touristy tasting menu. experience was very good, but the meal dragged way too long. 29 courses is just too many. I did really like the wine paring.
El Mercado - meh. very upper class clientele in a casual space. the grilled fish was good but everything else was kind of a miss. service was  uneven during brunch. much more interested in taking food orders than drink orders.

Additional Lima Photos  3.12 Peruvian Soles for $1

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LAN 600 LIM-LAX 789 J

Online check-in only served to allow for seat changes. Have to physically check in at the desk but there was not a line two hours before the flight. Made it from the Westin to my gate in 55 min having left at 22:30. LIM is a nice airport but the lounge here is tiny and jammed with people having flights between 00:00 and 02:00.

Flight was fine until the attendants began waking people up for breakfast two hours in advance of landing, at 5:30 Pacific Time. OMG, just let people in business sleep a bit longer and make breakfast much shorter. Why even serve breakfast? Just stay quiet until 6:50 or so and wake people for approach. Nice plane though.

AA LAX-SFO Y

Yeah, so you have been on an E-175? Yup. That was this flight. An unglamorous ending to what were a few really nice flights. But great to have made it home!