I'm at the Tampa airport this afternoon. I've always used O'Hare and Midway, and it's hard not to compare the Tampa airport with them... It's fairly obvious that patronage wasn't on the developers' minds when they designed this place. It's a culture shock - I think someone actually cares whethere people here have a good experience. In Chicago, you always get the feeling that, well, since you don't really have a choice on being there, your're sort of a captive audience that will just have to endure the experience.

In Tampa, they have actual real franchise businesses, at least the kind that are not owned by some politician's minority front company - "Donnie's Hot Dogs" and the "Blues Brothers gift shop" aren't very mainstream. To be fair, they do have Starbucks at ORD and MDW, but they were only allowed space once "City Coffe" (or some such alderman's nephew's company) failed. And think of the money Seattle has to pay the city...

In Tampa, they have constructed panoramic "airside" terminals, filled with artistic creations like ceramic murals of dolphins on the floors and wonderful WPA-era oil paintings of air travel by George Snow Hill, which tower over passengers waiting in TSA lines. Chicago tries - it does have the occasional flip-chart renderings painted by industrious Chicago Public school students.

When you leave the Tampa airport, you aren't shaken down by the squeegie squad on Cicero avenue. You drive across the sweeping vistas of the St Petersberg bridge and, while you may have to endure a senior driver or two, that's about as bad as it gets. I admit that you can't pull into the Portillo's and get a beef sandwhich but all that every got me was twenty pounds overweight. So here's to George Snow Hill and TPA and traveling like a tourist...

#tampa airport

Dolphins vs. the Blues Brothers