Latbear4blk

As they saw I was about to miss my flight, they put me in the fast line, customs was fast. I am traveling with my Argentine passport, I do not know if that helped to make the process faster, Argentina and Brazil are members of the MERCOSUR. The bag took longer, but it is a small airport and customs did not choose me to check. I was at the door 5 minutes before the time for departure, not for boarding.

The so much expected vacation started with some problems. Fortunately it was just the beginning, so let’s put the bad stuff at the very start. You can skip this post if you are not interested in traveling troubles, the good stuff will be in the next one. My first flight, from DC to Ft. Lauderdale, was with JetBlue. The flight was scheduled at 1:45 PM. The night before I almost did not sleep out of excitement, and by 5 AM I was up and having my morning latte. At 6 AM I got a call from JetBlue. Actually, two. I usually do not pick a call the I cannot identify the caller, so I rejected the first call. The phone sang again immediately from the same number, which is unusual, and so I picked the call. It was a JetBlue agent informing me that my flight had a delay of 5 hours, and offering me alternatives to avoid missing my combination from Florida to Recife. Instead of leaving at 1:45PM, now I was leaving at 10:30 and had to rush. Fortunately I was already half packed and made it with no problem to my first flight. The change also meant that my wait of 4 hours for my next flight which was already pretty bad, was now about 7 hours in the airport. I usually like airports and take advantage of the dead time, so I was ready to plug my laptop and do some work. Damn I was wrong. I found Ft. Lauderdale’s airport quite ugly, with poor decorations in the floor so talentlessly designed that made the floor look old and wasted and instead of drawing you would perceive flaws in the tiles. The options to eat were all unattractive, there was not Starbucks and the coffee alternatives were not good. Even worse, the airport was packed because of holiday traveling. All the spots with access to power were taken and people were fighting for them, some unconsidered motherfuckers would place their bags in the chairs next to them, taking two work stations. In DC, the JetBlue agent had offered me to check out my carry on luggage with no charge, and promised I would not have to retrieve it until my final destination. He gave me the luggage tab, and explained to me that he was not able to print the boarding passes for my other two flights because JetBlue has not access to Azul systems. I was stuck in an ugly packed airport, waiting for Azul agents to show up to print my tickets. The flight from Florida to Recife was scheduled at 7:30PM. The Azul agents showed up about 5PM to deal with an earlier flight that was delayed. They printed my tickets and told me I had to retrieve my bag in Recife. I told her about the JetBlue agent promise, but she advised me to ignore it and to listen to her. She also offered me to pay 65 bucks to get more leg room, offer I took. Everything look good, at about 7 the plane crew showed up at the boarding gate. No one of the guys was attractive to me, so disappointed. Two of the female flight attendants were gorgeous, but I was not traveling to Brazil to wake my straight gen. It was 7:30, the signs said the flight was on time, but there were no traces of the plane. The whole crew just took the few seats still free, pulled out their phones, and disconnected from real world. Bad sign. At 9PM the signs still said that the 7:30 flight to Recife was on time. I guess that is how Azul gets its reputation of being the most punctual airline in Brazil. Finally, at 9:45 the plane showed up, and the crew dropped their phones. We started boarding at 10:15, when the signs were still reporting that the flight was on time. The flight was comfortable thanks to the extra room I had bought. Of course, I flew very nervous, afraid of missing my combination to Salvador, considering the huge delay of my on time flight. Fortunately, we made in on time. We landed in Recife exactly 45 minutes before my last flight and although I was nervous they let me in the fast line and was at my boarding gate 10 minutes before landing, when all the other passengers were already on board. But more troubles were waiting for me. The Azul agent at the boarding gate was not accepting my boarding pass and sending me out of the restricted area to do a new check in. I got upset, I tried to make her understand that I would miss my flight and that it would be her fault. It was complicated, she would not understand English or Spanish, and my Portuguese does not exist. Lucky me, when I was turning back in frustration to follow her instructions, aware that I would lose my flight, her supervisor showed up, called me back, and sent me on board. He warned me that my seat may be taken and that I may have to seat somewhere else. Imagine how I felt when I get on board and not only I could seat in my assigned seat, but also I could have chosen any other one, as the plane was half empty. Would be unfair to make a judgement out of my first and only experience with this two companies (I think they are probably the same, being JetBlue the American brunch of its Brazilian big sister), but my trip was not a good experience. I am writing this while eating my breakfast in the hotel. I have to stop here to meet Fernando and his driver. Be patient, once I arrive to my hotel I started to have a great time and will report about it in my next post. As a brief advance, I am in love with Salvador. I went to Fox last night and can tell without doubts that Brazilians are the best kissers in the world. IMG_1633.MOV

@numazu1, I am landing in Salvador this Sunday morning and staying until January 3. When are you going to be there? Perhaps we can share a caipirinha in the beach or the saunas.

Do not forget that he lost the vote of the people. He was elected by the Electoral College.

Your opinions in this thread, in addition to your fondness for Secrets DC, are making me suspect that you are actually a Russian bot spreading fake news.

Sometimes I wonder How people understands my posts. Beyond all the typos in this post, please read "corrected" where the self corrector wrote "corrupted", in the second paragraph.

@tassojunior is making a good point. We all are so overwhelmed by Trump's scandalous and shameful presidency, that we are glorifying people we usually (I would) would be critics of. The point is, Tasso, that right now in this political moment, our main goal is to stop the raise of American racism, nationalism and authoritarianism (in my opinion it is a misconception to characterize it as fascism), represented by Trump. This is so important tat all the actors who agree on this goal should put their differences aside until Amrican political trajectory is corrupted and put back in a good track. Once liberal democracy is back in power and strong, we can go back to argue as we used to. I never liked them, but right now, I am fine with glorifying Bushes, McCains, and Mattises.

I think he would respond: "It is called a "tunic".

How do you pay in the saunas? You are hanging out for hours, semi naked, and your stuff is in the lockers. Do they give you a form where they go writing your consumptions and then you check out before leaving? Do they open a tab for your CC when you arrived and keep it open until you check out? Do you keep cash with you to pay to the GPs and the bartenders?

Do not compliment Cuba or Cubans too much. There will always be someone popping up to remind us how evil Communism is.

I have never been there, but I do know that being in the South, it is one of the favorite vacations destinations in Brazil for middle/low middle class Argentine families. Let me repeat that: FAMILIES.

I-CANNOT-WAIT

I don't know whether or not you are doing anything, but it seems to be working much better the last couple of days. Last time I had to reload when logging in was Friday.

We are playing with possible explanations without any information here, but if I can only choose between your two options I am strongly inclined for #2. With a caveat. With the wording you chose the client seems to be in control, aware of and manipulating the situation. I think it is probably quite different. Someone very insecure, who actually thinks is sharing intimate information with the garotos, who actually feels this as a personal, emotional, and special bound with the boys.

I may be wrong, and in that case I will be glad to be corrected, but this is what I think it happened. Some time ago pictures shared in the open Latin American forums were shown to the GPs depicted in them. Because of that incident in the open forum, @Tomcal created the private Club. Once in the private club, the problem occurred again. Tom considered cancelling everyone's membership and asking to re-apply. This time is the third occurrence, and Tom just closed the club and decided not to post anymore here. I think it was very naive from all of us to even consider that we would be able to control pictures sharing amongst people we do not really know. Plus the deeper concerns brought by @RockHardNYC from the very beginning of this thread. I will be more careful and more respectful of others' privacy.

Excellent point.

I do not like competition.

I do not think we are talking about that. I have a few conservative and many liberal friends. I often disagree with them in many things. But we all agree that Trump is a lier and that his performance in the meeting discussed in this thread was shameful and pathetic. i think that on assessing Trump we have moved away from politics, and now it is a matter of basic human decency and common sense.

I was not kidding, @RockHardNYC. I am very ignorant of much of American pop culture, and neverhad interest in the Oscars. It was an honest question.

May I ask why, out of all the mediocre Oscars hosts, you choose to compare Kevin Hart to Chris Rock?

I envy you.

It just took me five reloads to be able to log in to the forums. This morning tried from my iPhone several times, and most times I had to reload. The good news is that in the phone it takes only one reload. The bad news is that up to a few days ago there were zero problems using the phone.

That is what I do. And it is not working well.

No, it is just the only answer you can expect from a racist.

I logged out right now; logged in again to Boytoy homepage with no problems, click on the Menu for the Forums Homepage, I was logged out there. This time I had to reload the page 8 times to get in.