The Inaugural Colombia Blog Post

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Well, I'm in Colombia. That's ColOmbia, with 2 o's. It's amazing how many of you silly North Americans spell that incorrectly (yes, 30 hours on a continent makes me one of them).

I have a lot I could write about, and for the first couple weeks I think there will be a bit of a backlog on the blog (backblog?), but I want to try to focus on just one topic per entry to keep things interesting. With that in mind, today's piece will be all about various aspects of my air travels in the last couple weeks. I've had four flights recently, because I visited my parents in San Francisco (through Vancouver) for a week before coming down south, and then had a layover in Miami on the way here, so I've got 3 airlines and 5 airports to blog about. Here goes!

Airport Ranking

4. Miami - This ranking is likely somewhat unfair to the Miami airport, given the state I was in (it was Florida). I had flown out of San Francisco at 11PM, arrived 7:30AM Miami time, having gotten no sleep (I can't sleep on planes), and then had a 7 hour layover. I wanted to sleep during the layover, and I thought it might even work out - even though I can almost never sleep on any form of transportation, I believe the primary reason for this is the upright position one is forced into, so curling up on an airport floor, after having stayed up all night, sounded perfectly fine. I even had a comfy travel pillow and a blanket. Last but not least, my dad had texted me his google results for "where to sleep in Miami airport".

So what went wrong? Well, I couldn't find these alleged best spots, since the map system was ridiculously bad. I never found "concourse A" on a single map in the whole airport (they had concourses B through J). And there just weren't any other good spots - it was loud, bright, and I didn't want to use ear plugs or a blindfold since I had valuable stuff with me.

Anyway, the point of me telling you all this was that the 7 hours I spent in the Miami airport were unpleasant, hence its low rank. Other things that suck about the Miami airport:

• I had to go through security again, since my connecting flight was in a different area
• the currency exchange place didn't have Colombian Pesos
• much of the airport was under construction, which might have accounted for my inability to find the supposed sleeping zones. However, this construction was not at all marked on any maps. When trying to find the gate for my connecting flight, an airport employee pointed me in a direction which ultimately ended up being under construction.
• The airport is shaped like a U, and I basically had to go from one tip to the other. It was honestly a couple of kilometers. I don't understand why there isn't some connection.
  

3. San Francisco - I really didn't spend much time in the San Fran airport, even though it was the only airport I visited twice on the trip. I had a beer at a bar literally right beside my gate on the way out, which was predictably overpriced. The airport was okay - I doubt it would have moved in the rankings if I had spent more time there. Perhaps over Toronto, but probably not to spots 1 or 4.

2. Toronto - another one that's difficult to rank, since I've been to the Toronto airport many times, and generally been pretty impressed by it (thanks to fatherly first class lounge connections), but on this visit all I really did was have a burger and fries in the "Red Rocket Grill", which was so tacky I loved it (they actually tried pretty hard to make it look like a subway car). Also, the burger was surprisingly good.

1. Vancouver - I've never been to Vancouver before. I've been to 9 provinces (Newfoundland), 20 states, and 4 continents, but not one of the biggest and coolest (so I've heard, anyway), cities in Canada. It's almost definitely #1 on my Canada to-visit list. And the airport did nothing to change that stance. It actually looked nice on the inside, something that could not be said for any other airports I visited, its wireless internet was free (which I took advantage of when we were stuck on the ground for half an hour and my iPod could still reach it, advising my parents to leave a little later to pick me up), and it had Orange Julius!!! I know this isn't exactly earth-shattering, but I got an Orange Julius, and I haven't had Orange Julius in probably more than a decade. I used to get Orange Julius somewhat often as a kid, so drinking an Orange Julius at the Vancouver was very nostalgic and awesome. Orange Julius Win. I also had a Monte Cristo.

Unranked: Barranquilla - Barranquilla's airport isn't exactly on the same playing field as the other 4 - for one thing, it's tiny, and for another, when I was there, I was ARRIVING IN SOUTH AMERICA. Obviously Barranquilla wins. Also, the Barranquilla airport was the first airport in South America (like I mean in history not in me)! Cool! One other great thing about this airport is that I didn't understand the customs form because it was in Spanish, and after a bunch of me being like "je ne sais pas but in Spanish" they were like screw it, just go.

You know what? Let's stop there. I still have an airline ranking and a bunch of miscellaneous notes, but I tend to babble, so let's break things up a bit. I'm off to Cartagena tomorrow, a trip organized by the school (they are seriously pampering me, I'll tell you about it sometime), so catch ya later folks.