Donna's Favourites - 2003

October 2003 - In honour of our loving and selfless sponsors, we now have a feature called the Sponsor of the Month.  Please be sure to check it out before you leave.  In the meantime, you are all probably here for some funny airport stories.  Here are a few memorable stories for this update:

• Don't you just hate the rich sometimes?  Can you imagine those smug First Class passengers slumming in the airports?  Well, check out mink wearing, Louis Vuitton luggage carrying Rebecca's story on New York La Guardia.  Also see a few of my suggestions about travelling with kids from a recent extended visit of LGA back in August.

• It seems there are announcements for everything:  don't leave your bags unattended, report unaccompanied baggage, don't smoke, etc.  How about announcements to remind passengers to go to the bathroom prior to their flight?  Either a lot of kids pass through this airport or Washington just likes to treat all passengers like children.  

• Just another reminder that I do not edit messages.  One contributor wanted me to clean up the language of another contributor.  I can't do that.  Here is her message and what set her off.

• If you're going to take my advice about taking a walkman and listening to it to drown out the awful airport noises, keep it close to you or you may wake up with headphones, but no player like Lunny did.

• I like these Cancun and Brussels listings.

• Welcome these cities to the list: Windhoek, Champaign, Long Beach, Swansea, Reus, Monastir, Sfax, Dundee, Kerkira.

July 2003 - First of all, we had a huge increase in Norwegian residents/visitors over the past week.  As a result, I had to create 7 new pages just for Norway alone.  Thanks for all that extra work, folks!  Feeling left out over there, were we???  Well, a few of these Norwegian contributions were memorable enough to make the favourites list, so let me share them with you:

• This contributor does not give many details about the Oslo airport, but oral sex was involved.  Now I'm wondering.....does everyone passing through this airport receive this???  That is some kinda service you folks have.  Perhaps this service is included in the airport tax!?!?  Travel agents around the
  globe are receiving calls right now from frantic, horny travellers asking to be diverted (no matter the destination) through Norway.  Agent: "But Mr. Smith, why do you want to fly through Oslo when you can book a direct flight from New York to the Bahamas?"

• Part of the joy of travel is encountering some wonderfully helpful people.  Read Maíre NíChonaill's experience in Hammerfest, Norway

• Sadly, experiences like these in Sanaa, Yemen and Queen Alia's, Jordan airports seem like common place.  On the other hand Baghdad sounded pleasant enough at the time of our contributor's December 2002 stay -- not sure about now.  Best of luck for those of you with future trips to the Middle East.  

• Imagine the only overnight (apparently) security guard disappearing for a few hours leaving a group of drunken Americans in an airport alone with a request to let the cleaning crew in when they arrived.  That happened in Glasgow.

• Welcome these cities to the list: Orsta, Kirkenes, Stavanger, Bergen, Hammerfest, Bodo Lufthavn, Kristiansand, Benghazi, Almeria, Tonga, Baghdad.

May 2003

• If you've left your airline tickets and passport on the bus you've asked your parents to track down, it might not be a good idea to fall asleep in the airport while you wait for them to arrive.  You wouldn't want to miss those announcements asking you to come information desk.  Check out Simon Talbot's experience.

• I love this quote from another Singapore sleeper - "Its a pleasure to live there!"  

• We get some strange stories, but I am still trying to figure out this one that hints at injection of drugs and aliens in Cardiff.

• I like this story about Zurich.  When it became clear that the contributor was not a terrorist, the security guard showed the individual where to catch some good zzzzzs.

• Well, Port Moresby has made the list yet again.  This time there were not gun battles at the airport, just weak bladders.

• If you are at the airport and walk by someone who is bleeding and has pool of blood on the floor under his or her chair, would you assist the person, call for help or just keep walking?  Let's see what the people passing through Calgary would do.

• Number of messages received advising me of bad geography - 1 .  Apparently, Iquliat and Rankin Inlet are in Nunavet, not the Northwest Territories as I listed.  This is in my own friggin' country and I had no idea.  I am so embarrassed.  Does Canada have a new province that I was unaware of?

• Welcome these cities to the list: Nunu Hiva, Ontario, Xian, Xiamen

April 2003 - I was updating the site and decided that I would start to clean things up a bit.  You know.... make sure the links were working and that all the airports are listed correctly.  Things were moving along swimmingly until I reached the Middle East section.  Having paid attention to recent CNN reporting, I started to notice cities and countries that I had listed here that should not have been.  For example, I listed cities in Egypt as being in the Middle East.  Ok, my geography was at least close, but indeed Egypt is in Africa.  More horrifyingly embarrassing is my blunder of putting Morocco in the Middle East.  For those of you who actually own a map or are familiar with world geography, you know that Morocco is on the western coast of Africa.  The country is nowhere near the Middle East.  Shame on me.  Also, per many visitors' requests I have put India and Sri Lanka in the Asia section.  If you find any more of my geographical blunders, please make my day by pointing it out to me.  

Here are some new features that have been added with this update:

• We have a photo contest.  If you take the most frightening or grotesque photo of an airport, send it to this site.  For good measure you can also send photos of the good airports, but we prefer the ones where we will think "thankfully we didn't have to experience that".

• e top of each regional index page, we now show the cities with the most reports.  Just in case you were wondering which ones are the most popular.

• Do you have any suggestions for improvements or features you would like added to this site?  If you wish to provide constructive suggestions, not complaints like "I hate the colour of the borders", please email me.

March 2003 

• We always worry about our bags being stolen while we sleep.  Well, if you camp out in Amsterdam, it will help you to get the security guards attention if your underwear happens to be showing.  Ladies, bring out those thongs!!!

• Reading some of these listings, I really learn about different cultures and customs.  One of the most interesting reads during this update is about North Korea.

January 2003 - As the years pass rapidly here at the Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports, I've noticed lately that many of you are sending your reports promptly after your airport stay.  Thank you for this.  It gives me hope that people are actually referring to the site before they travel, not after.  Every story is useful and informative, here are a few of the most memorable ones for this update:

• Who knew that in Salou, Spain passengers must walk 3 km over the tarmac to collect their bags that will show up 2 hours after the flight has arrived?  Who knew Salou, Spain existed?  Not, many - just what I thought. 

• Beware of elderly woman armed with, what could be, lethal cheese in the Catania airport 

• More incentive for camping at the Singapore airport.  There's a swimming pool.  This airport never fails to impress. 

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