Down with Dulles

Of the three airports that we DC residents can fly out of, the worst one has got to be Dulles. Located in West Virginia, I am pretty sure, Dulles by car somehow always requires a trip though rush-hour traffic. Getting to it on public transportation was once impossible, but with the advent of the 5A bus from Rosslyn, it is now annoying. The bus runs about once an hour, and it fills to overflowing with people and their bags.

The upside is that if you end up standing for the 45 minute ride, you don't have to support your own weight. Whomever you are sandwiched between will prop you up. Plus, you make friends with fellow fliers. On my last trip on the 5A, a man who could more easily reach my book that I, turned its pages for me. I'd complain that he also read over my shoulder, but I think I was, technically, reading over his.

The blue van known as the Super Shuttle is also an option for getting to the airport. On the plus side, it picks you up right at your front door. On the minus side, Super Shuttle makes aimless loops around the city before returning to your block to retrieve your neighbor. To make time for this, they will insist on picking you up at 6:00 a.m. for your 1:00 p.m. flight.

You'll want to budget some extra time, though, to navigate Dulles's "Islands of Adventure" layout. The main body the airport is not physically connected to its terminals, and Dulles designers opted against the monorail system used by large airports such as Baltimore's and Atlanta's. Instead, Dulles shuttles passengers with moving rooms, adorned inexplicably with roof fins--something you might expect to find in ’70s-era Epcot.

At DC's own Tomorrowland, travelers are ushered into what appears to be a series of dead-end hallways. A red-numbered timer hangs over each room's entryway, and counts down to departure. As the countdown reaches zero, the doors close, and the room begins its slow lumber across the tarmac.

To avoid Dulles aggravation, and also because my grandmother was paying, I opted against flying out of Dulles on a recent trip to visit my family in Florida. Instead, I used National Airport: small, Metro accessible and, well, Metro accessible.

While waiting to board my plane, I listened to Floridians complain about the weather. One woman, on a cell phone, said: "It's ridiculous here; I'm going home." Her tone of voice implied that DC's 50-degree air temperature and blustery rain were the result of the airline's incompetence. To be fair, I appreciate her complaint. Florida, when I was there, was gorgeous. The people there seem so happy in their tank tops, under their cloudless skies.

They are happy not because of the weather, but because they get to call their relatives in Chicago or DC, and gloat. "I'm in Tampa; it's 78 degrees! How are you?" I hear them say. "Another blizzard? Timmy lost two toes to frostbite?" They can barely contain their glee.

(My stepmother, who used to work in TV news, tells me that Florida news programs actually allot extra time to national weather coverage, to facilitate the schadenfreude.)

While I was in Florida, I ended up on the news myself. This is because I was in a pirate parade. DC residents may not know that, for a few days in January, many people in Tampa dress up like pirates. This is another way to express weather-related exuberance, I suppose. They get on boats, hoist skull-and-crossbones flags, and shoot cannon blanks at each other. Drinking is also involved.

At around noon, the pirates dock and gather around their pirate-ship-shaped parade floats. If there was an anti-pirate defamation league, Tampa would be in trouble. These pirates--one of whom I recognized as an insurance salesman, another of whom used to be the governor of Florida--look filthy, and adorn themselves with scars and gashes. This doesn't stop throngs of women from treating them like major heartthrobs, begging for kisses and plastic beads.

I was on the most boring float in the parade--the city government float. (My dad works for the city.) We were not allowed to dress like pirates, and we could not demand favors in exchange for our beads, which were inferior to the pirate's booty, anyway. In the strange economy of Gasparilla--the name of the festival--there is a clear hierarchy to the beads, which must retail at about 5 cents apiece. The most sought-after beads are the classy pearl-style strands. Enterprising pirates often trade their long faux-pearls for cans of beer.

This year I noticed some attempts to out-fancy the pearls. On the City of Tampa float, for instance, there was one man with softball-size beads. He couldn't even tilt his head back while wearing them, so he walked much of the parade route holding his prize necklace, pretending to be just about to toss it to the crowd. The crowd reacted with enormous and unkind glee when the string finally gave, the beads rolling off dangerously in the direction of a marching band.

I'm back in DC now and there is a disappointing lack of pirates here. And I am not answering my phone, in an attempt to avoid my relatives who are just calling to gloat about the weather.