Day 1: Most Expensive Part of My Trip

So yesterday I departed for my adventure to South America. First of all, I think that is the last time that I will volunarily sign up to be Santa Claus for my friends down in Peru. It was about zero degrees Celsius outside yesterday morning when I left my apartment, two bags in tow, on my way to work. Two bags. The last time I travelled with two bags was...I don't even know. I can last for up to two weeks with my one carry-on luggage bag, but I had to bring a whole second bag just for the crap that my friends wanted. Being as cheap as I am, I still insisted on going to work via mass transit since I work in Queens and would have to take the subway eventually anyway. Suffice to say that by the time I got to work, I was covered in sweat from carrying the 100+ pounds of Bath and Body Works lotion. :o{

I know all about the reputation of New York's La Guardia airport, which is one of the reasons why I try to avoid it at all costs. To sum it up in a word: delays. However, since I was flying on a free ticket last night from my miles, I couldn't really complain too much. I left work at a reasonable hour, 5:00, perfect for the amount of time needed to get to the airport in time for my 7:30 flight. As soon as I got dropped off at the airport, American Airlines dropped me a text message saying "Oh yea, by the way, your flight is delayed an hour". That sounds about right for LGA. Since I was connecting through Miami, though, I started doing calculations and was a bit worried about making my connection. I checked in at the counter and decided at the last minute that I better not check both bags in because of the short connection time, which was a half an hour if the flight left as it was now scheduled to leave. IF. But no, the flight was two hours delayed by the time we finally took off and at this point I knew was basically screwed.

So we arrived in Miami at around midnight and sure enough, my 11:55 flight to Lima was gone. Just barely gone. The American Airlines guy dealing with all the frustrated South America-bound travels didn't really give a damn about that and informed everyone that because the tardiness was due to air traffic, American wouldn't be compensating anyone's hotels.

So not only am I stuck in Miami, but I have to pay for my own $150 hotel room and stick around for 24 hours waiting for my next flight. Hence the blogging. Interestingly, I decided to go to South Beach for the day (I know no one in Miami and don't know anywhere else to go really) and paid the $50 cab ride from my ghetto hotel. I walked around today and it is kind of an interesting place, but it isn't really what I thought it was going to be. It's more like a Southern California beach city with big hotels along the ocean road and lots of buildings composed of geometric (cubic) shapes. I have a feeling it could be a pretty fun place at night, but I'll be sitting on my but watching DVDs and waiting for the next flight delay, instead.

J. Riley, I walked by Miami Ink a few minutes ago looking for an internet cafe. Funny that I could have pulled up the picture of my tattoo and gone next door to get it implanted into my skin :) . But I think I'll abstain for the time being...