Triangle Trip

Good piece from Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat) of the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/opinion/24friedman.html

This is how I feel every time I come back to the States from Asia.

If you ever travel in the Northeast Corridor for work, the best way to travel hands down is via Amtrak.  There are no security lines, no need to get to the train station way in advance, no need to turn off your cellphones or laptops, and plenty of legroom.  Maybe the most negative aspect is trying to find an empty seat on a crowded train especially if you are not boarding at Boston, New York, or Washington D.C.  The best feature of traveling frequently on Amtrak though is possibly their partnership with Continental Airlines.  You can transfer Amtrak miles for Continental miles 1 to 1 (but only in 5,000 point increments) and you get access to the Continental lounge if you flash your Amtrak Select Plus (Amtrak’s top tier status) card.  So remember to carry around your Amtrak Select Plus card even if you are traveling via air.

I flew my first flight on Virgin America on Halloween, and I was pleased.  Virgin America only goes to certain cities, and luckily, my destination was one of the, San Francisco (SFO) to Las Vegas (LAS).  I usually go Southwest, but suprisingly the cost was the same, so I decided to give VA a shot.  Being a normal airline, you choose your own seat, which I much prefer than standing in line of Southwest to fight for a seat.

Since VA is relatively new, it is located in the International terminal at SFO.  The adventure began as my girlfriend and I shuttled to the International terminal from long term parking.  The International terminal is actually the last stop of the shuttle, but if you want, you can walk from Terminal 1 to International terminal, and I decided to do that to see how long it was, since we were early.  It wasn’t too bad, maybe a 5 minute walk, up some escalators.

Inevitably the flight was delayed, as all airlines were delayed out of SFO with the mist and clouds.  No blame on the airline, in fact, they actually made up for it by hosting some "events" to pass the time..  I took part in some soccer, thats right they actually had a little net, and a small soccer ball where were did a shootout.   They gave free drink vouchers and/or free seat upgrades to the winners.  Being Halloween, there were tons of people in costume, one even in a hot dog suit.  I’m not exactly sure how he fit in his seat later, but that was pretty amusing.

The airplane was a new plane for sure, they had the touchscreen displays on the back of every seat.  This was probably the coolest part of the trip, and something I enjoy.  I hear they have this is a lot of international airlines, but this is the first time I’ve seen one. There is a selection of a dozen movies, and a lot of different tv shows you can choose from. Most of the time I just listened to the selection of music they had because the shows were kind of choppy.

Overall, I had a good experience with Virgin America and I would fly them again if the prices are good to my third home, Las Vegas.