The inbound aircraft was delayed so my flight on Iberia from London to Madrid was nearly an hour late departing. Apparently the reason was Spanish ATC issues. I didn't mind though as I was having a great time eating some delicious pumpkin & parsnip soup and other nice things in the British Airways lounge while watching planes take-off and land in the rain. When the flight was finally called we learned that the jet-bridge wasn't working and we'd have to walk outside (photo, top left). Even that I didn't mind since it has been a while since I breathed-in the smell of burning jet fuel and directly heard the sounds associated with being on the tarmac. So what if I was getting a little bit wet. A window seat, a nice meal enroute and before long we were landing in Madrid.
The Madrid airport is very modern (interior shot, top right) and very long when walking from one end to the other. Unfortunately some glitch in the oneworld alliance system prevented me from obtaining a boarding pass for the LAN flight to Santiago while I was in London. I'm guessing that Iberia and LAN don't get along well as "partners." This meant I would need to actually leave the secure area of the airport, go through immigration, go to the check-in counters, get a boarding pass and again go through security & immigration before heading to the Iberia lounge. This I did. Thankfully there was no luggage involved as it was able to be checked from LHR to SCL. Still, it was a royal pain, nevertheless I'm officially counting this as another visit to Spain since I have the passport stamps to prove it!
The Iberia lounge is quite nice and although some of the food looked interesting I knew I'd be fed on the flight and didn't want to eat too much. Diet coke sustained me for the duration. The flight was called and we boarded the aircraft via a working jet-bridge (photo, above, but depicting the aircraft actually after arrival in Santiago). My seat, 3L was taken, as was the one next to it on the aisle. The flight attendant checked and the seat was assigned twice (which happened to me only one other time on a TWA flight to London in 1978). Anyway, we got it sorted out and my new seat was 1A, a bulkhead window seat. Business class was completely full when we pushed back from the gate.
The service on LAN airlines was nice and the food that I had was fine, although I decided to again eat lite as I was more interested in getting some sleep. The seat reclines 175 degrees so it's not completely lie-flat. It was well after 1:00 a.m. and I didn't care. A good pillow, blanket and I was off to the land of nod. There is usually some turbulence to be found over the South Atlantic and I found that riding-it-out, especially when it's "moderate" is best while in the prone position. No problem. A nice breakfast was served while I viewed our crossing of the snow-covered Andes mountains and we landed on schedule. Welcome to Santiago, Chile and continent number six on this around-the-world journey.
