sleeping in airports

in the course of my wanderlust over the last 6 years, i`ve only had occasion to sleep in an airport twice, well, only once really.. i came across this little tidbit on metafilter about the best and worst airports in the world to sleep in.

my first and real airport sleeping experience came on the end of my first trip to see vic. i was on my way back to trinidad via a visit to, travel maven, sam, who now lives and works in mississippi [did i spell that right? i can never get it]. i had spent a few days with her after my amazing week with vic. it was only a 4 hour bus drive.

sam managed to find me an uber-cheap flight on air tran from memphis to miami. if you`ve never flown air tran it`s like going by greyhound only faster, but just barely. uncomfortable seating, long pointless layovers. after a massive delay in hartsfield i managed to get into mia at a little past 11pm. i didn`t know anyone in miami and had no cash to stay at the airport hotel, so i did what any traveller worth his salt would, slept in the airport.

first of all mia has the loudest fucking florescent on the face of the planet, i`ve flown on turbo props that were quieter. conceive if you dare an swarm of angry bees with a lord vader complex in your ear.

and if that isn`t bad enough, i believe they`re actively discouraging sleeping in that airport. the seats are designed in such a manner, making laying down almost impossible. it`s two tiny seats, armrest, then two more seats.

i decided that if i was going to get any sleep at all i would just lay on the carpet and use my bag as a pillow. wouldn`t you know it, the carpet felt damp and smelled worse. i realised i was in for a long night.

i started roaming the corridors of the very closed terminal, if only to completely exhaust myself to enable me to fall asleep. i never did. i caught naps here and there on the chairs in front of the airline counters.

the plus side of that experience was even completely bleary eyed or maybe because i was completely bleary eyed, the woman at the counter put me on the earlier flight instead of making me spend an extra 6 hours in mia.

my other airport sleeping experience occurred quite recently, in our very own overpriced fiasco of an airport, now here`s an airport built for sleeping, subdued lighting, seats for four, managed to catch a good long nap before some ridiculously early flight a few weeks ago

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