Saturday, June 18, 2011

Saturday, June 18

First stop on the way to Africa is.....Portland, Oregon. My usual obsession with getting the best airline deal has put me in a plane ride in the wrong direction. It will take me 12 hours to finally get to LaGuardia in NYC. A foolish economy. For $50 more I probably could have gotten a non stop or at least an easier trip.
Oakland Airport is surprisingly quiet on this Saturday morning at 9am. The smell of food is everywhere, something like a mixture of sugar and flour and coffee. Southwest is savvy enough to have a big screen playing cartoons to keep the kiddies entertained but dad is having nothing of it and drags his little boy off to explore.
The sounds are of bland jazz and humming machines. Most of the people waiting are asleep or staring into a computer screen.
The tarmac is nearly deserted with just one or two baggage guys lounging against empty baggage carts. The weather is typical Oakland cool with just enough clouds to make the sky interesting. The gaudy orange colors of Southwest Airlines seem unsophisticated, probably harkening back to the early days of trying to establish a cheap way to fly.

At the Gershwin Hotel on 27th Street in Manhattan. It's 2am and I just got here. My skinflint ways caused delays. I wouldn't pay for a taxi from LaGuardia; instead took the city bus to the subway, but I didn't have change for the bus so that slowed things. But I can boast that my expenses for the day are well within my budget:
$2.79 bottled water at Chicago Airport (the cheapskate brought a burrito to avoid airport food)
$2.25 city bus in New York
$10.00 metro card for NY subway/buses
$60.00 one night at the Gershwin
$75.04 Total for today.

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