Wednesday, August 31, 2005

The Atlanta Airport

My trip to Washington takes me through Atlanta, which makes all sorts of sense if you are Delta and believe all flights should be routed through Delta. Me, I think that a flight where my layover is somewhere between Seattle and Washington makes a little more sense. But then again, I don't run a multi-billion dollar airline.

But the airport is nice, if not a little strange. It was the first reminder on the trip that the United States is really not one nation... it is many separate areas with a wide variety of people and cultures. For example, at Seatac smoking is strictly forbidden. Voices come over the PA speaker with great frequency to denounce the behavior and banish those who engage in it to the outside curb (and only specially marked areas of the curb). Contra Atlanta, where the airport is a "limited smoking airport." Oh sure, they still limit smoking, but the approach to the limitation is so very different as to be striking. That combined with the gospel music piping over the speakers and billboards advertising "credible cheese" and I really began to feel like the South is a very different place than from whence I came.

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