Confessions of an IT Girl

It’s been a wild summer of business travel, and I’m more than pleased to say that it ends tomorrow when I GO ON VACATION.  It’s hard to imagine that I will be away from work for almost two weeks but, YEAH, that’s my reality.  We’ll be on the Maine-N.H. seacoast eating lobstah, going to beaches, and shopping at cool Maine stores like L.L. Bean.  But I’m not there yet.  I’m at the Philadelphia airport waiting for a flight home.

That’s the thing about flying to Indianapolis from the NY area.  There used to be a good number of direct flights on real planes.  Now, you’re lucky if you can find a non-stop.  U.S. Air used to fly direct from LGA but they gave up that route.  Air Tran had a number of flights, but after being aquired by Southwest, those seem to have gone away as well.  Continental, the IT Girl airline of choice, has flight, but if you stay less than 3 days the fare is over $1,000.  Not cool.  And all the planes are small regional jets or (horrors!) prop planes like the one waiting to take me into White Plains.

So for this very quick trip to Indy, I choose to go on U.S. Air.  The big decision was where to connect – Washington National, Charlotte or Philadelphia.  Charlotte seemed totally out of the way, taking it totally out of contention.  Between DCA and PHI I figured there was a better chance of a good meal (cheesesteaks!  Amish food!) in Philly, so that became the winner.

While I don’t care much for the sports teams this city chooses to support, I am a fan of the airport.  Here’s why…

1.  Airport has free wi-fi – not all do, and it’s become really apparent that this is something all airports should offer.  Without airport wi-fi, this blog would have been a ghost town this summer.

2. Food!  Except for the F concourse, which is under construction, the food selection is pretty good.  I got a cheesesteak at some place called Chickie’s and Pete’s.  Or something like that.  There’s also a kiosk that sells unassuming giant pretzels in plastic wrappers.  I figured it would be something good to take to the hotel and microwave for a snack.  They were way better than I expected, and today I am bringing some home for the family to snack on.  I promise I will put them in the oven, dear pretzel purists.

3.  Pictures of the Mayor are all around.  And he’s named Nutter.  That makes me smile.

Next time I have to connect on an Indy trip, I might just choose Philly again.  Not that anyone chooses to connect, but that seems to be what air travel is about these days.  What are your prefered airports and which ones would you never step foot in if you had the choice?