Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Tales from a confusing airport

I'm currently in LAX (that is, while writing this - it's unlikely to be the case when you read this). I think it is one of the worst signposted airports I've been through. I knew (but only because I'd previously read my itinerary and made a note of it) that I had to get to terminal 8. After walking out of customs there was ground transportation etc, but nothing to indicate how to get to any other terminal. After asking someone, I learned that I should go up an escalator, which deposits me at the curbside where people get dropped off, then walk in a particular direction. I was at terminal 6, after a short walk I was at terminal 7, then... that was the end of the building. I ended up walking inside and noticing I sign for a particular gate range which included the gate I'd noticed was the departure gate for my flight, so I followed that and ended up where I needed to be. Heaven help anyone who doesn't speak English or use the Latin symbols for numbers.

On the plus side, the WiFi is free :-)

Anyway, if you haven't been following, this trip is for the TopCoder Collegiate Challenge. Unlike the Google Code Jam, they've put me on the flight schedule from hell: Cape Town - London - Los Angeles - San Diego, and returning San Diego - San Francisco - Frankfurt - Cape Town, with about 7 hours of temporal homicide in Frankfurt and arriving in Cape Town at 6am. The
only good news is that my first round isn't until Thursday. I don't know what internet access will be like, so I'll post more if and when I can.

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