Review of American Airlines flight from Miami to Buenos Aires in Economy

I'm a High School student here in Washington, DC. I was invited to attend a conference in Buenos Aires last october – the school decided to pay for my flights, hotel, and meals!
Noting that the school was paying for the flights - they picked AA. At first I was bummed that I wasn't going to fly Delta through ATL, this roundtrip would have gotten me Silver Status. Too bad. No big deal.
The routing was:
DCA-MIA AA2206 B737-800 8:05pm - 10:42pm
MIA-EZE AA931 B777-200 11:55pm - 9:53am
EZE-MIA AA900 B777-200
MIA-DCA AA2326 B737-800
I left my house for Reagan Airport via the metro. Its a 30 minute ride with 1 transfer.
It was a full train around 6:30pm

The AA counters at DCA were pretty empty:

I don't have any photo's of the DCA-MIA flight, but it was very good. Nice FAs, comfortable seats, overhead videos playing CBS sitcoms, and power outlets in-between seats.
Transferring in MIA was very simple and quick.

I've always liked the sea shells in the floor. Nice reminder were in Florida.
Look at those delays to Buenos Aires! Lucky we're on time.

Since it was around 11PM, duty free was in the process of closing:

Heres our gate

Boarding priorities were not very strict. Elites, First, Business, then all of Y at once. I was at the front of the line so it was very quick.

Ugly Jetway:

It was my first time boarding an AA 777. I had the new livery, but same old cabin.

Warm welcome by Spanish speaking FAs
The business seats look sad–

Y seating was 2-5-2! Last time i flew a configuration like this was on a United 777 from IAD to CDG years ago! This cabin would prove to be much more comfortable.

I arrived at row 37 to find this!

Not what i was expecting. I took my seat at the window and pressed the FA button for some attention. Never got any.
Boarding took a long time - eventually a woman came looking for seat 37H. She was a little speechless. I was too. The plane was mostly boarded and very full, yet she was able to find a seat a few rows behind me on the aisle. All of this was without any help from the FAs. Eventually a man came in a yellow AA maintenance vest with a new seat cover. The old one, which was on the floor, was soaked in pee! Ew! I ended up with both the aisle and window seats all by myself - both with clean seat covers LOL.
A view from my window around midnight:

The seats were wide, and pretty comfortable. The IFE was minuscule, but at least it had some movies, tv shows, and a moving map.

Take off was quick and powerful
here are two views of the Miami CBD at night-

FAs began their service by handing out crappy earphones.
Classic merger mixups -

It was late, but a full dinner was served. Choices were chicken or pasta. No printed menus.
I chose chicken

I asked for some diet coke and got the whole can. I left it on the half folded tray of the aisle seat. I had tons of space! It was a blessing considering practically everyone else had a neighbor.

The chicken wasn't bad. I finished it. Salad was medicare. Packaged dessert was not bad, but disappointing compared to most global airlines.

The pasta was really good. I was very surprised!

Tea after dinner - this time they got the logos right!

After dinner, I reclined my seat and slept for more than 7 hours! I've never been so comfortable in a Y seat. The head rests were affective, the blankets were warm enough, and the recline was ample. Now multiply that by two with a free aisle seat!
I woke up to blue skies and argentine pastures 37,000 feet below

Breakfast was served 1.5 hours before scheduled landing.

It was a pretty miserable breakfast, but it was better than AF or UA transatlantic.
The yogurt was – yogurt, and the croissant was hot.
Good pitch - i'm 6 feet

Beginning our descent into Buenos Aires. Now I see why those other flights were delayed!

Uh oh. We were circling in thunderstorms!

The storms caused ATC to shut down all runways at EZE. Captain came on to give some news - our flight was diverted to Mendoza - an Argentine city on the other side of the country. Closer to Santiago de Chile than Buenos Aires.
20 minutes later, the captain came back and said they were going to open one runway for us to land in Buenos Aires!
It was and extremely turbulent re-descent. So bumpy that some people screamed a little.

We landed to find tons of parked planes on all of the taxiways.

A barely visible KLM 777, a Lan 767-300, and an Air Austral Embraer

Spotted a Turkish 777 in a line of parked planes

Everyone was eager to get off the plane, so deplaning was fast.

Last shots of the cabin.
Business class seats had tiny IFEs too.

First looks dated, but still very comfy.

Peace out AA

It was raining so hard that a good amount made it into the jetway as well! Welcome to Argentina!
Customs was fast, but baggage delivery took forever!

Tourist bonus of Buenos Aires-