Arriving into Bogota....Finally

Just a warning to anyone who will ever have a layover at JFK- make sure you have AMPLE time in between your flights. I arrived from the red-eye early Friday morning in New York and immediately preceded to check the monitors for my connecting flight in an hour. As luck would have it my flight to Bogota was the only flight without a gate posted. It seemed strange, especially because all the other flights were domestic, that my flight would be in the same terminal. I start wandering and eventually find a bigger monitor with my flight on it indicating that I need to be in a completely different terminal! Can anyone sympathize with me about how CONFUSING this airport is?! I've been to airports all over the world and I must say that JFK is so poorly labeled. After asking two people who gave me opposite directions I made my way to the tram and jumped on heading in the wrong direction of course. After circling the whole airport and sprint to my gate my flight is set to depart in 20 min. I am too late. Devastated and in disbelief I go to the Delta counter and to my luck find a amiable and most importantly sympathetic woman to help me book another flight. She was just as confused as I was as to how they could have booked two flights so close together. For me to have made that flight I would have had to be from one side of the damn airport to the other side in ten minutes. No way that was possible even if I knew where I was going. Wanting to be angry and upset I realized that wouldn't make me the situation any better so I resolved to let it go and just be happy that I got another flight leaving that same day.

After nearly 24 hours of traveling I arrived safely in Bogota. Box of wine, check. Suitcase no where to be found. I search, wander over to something that looks like a luggage storage room and am told by Colombian woman my suitcase wouldn't be there. Okay, next, make friends with young Colombian gentleman who might be nicer. They find some other woman, describe my suitcase and she accompanies me to the luggage storage room I was turned away from. Indeed, my suitcase is there! Lesson #2- be persistent. Finally I exit the airport to be greeted by an enthusiastic Chepe and his father. Enormous sigh of relief. Chepe's family is adorable. He has two brothers Sebastiano and Juan. His parents are so kind and sweet. Oh and there's their friendly bulldog Matteo who peed out of excitement five times when I arrived.