Orlando

I usually don't share the details of the trips between places but as ths one was so eventful I thought I'd share. As we were queueing in immigration at Miami airport to get an internal flight to our final destination we were followed in the queue by a big annoying American man in what looked like pjamas. On the way in the sign had very clearly said US citizens to the right and visitors to the left and above us in the queue were big yellow visitor signs. He stood behind us and complained to his friend about how long it was taken and how they were in the right place as they were only in Miami to visit another friend of theirs. At this point we turned around to explain to them that Americans had to go to a different queue. Finally we got through immigration and then customs and then moving our lugaging from one machine to another (I dont understand why we had to do this but it seemed very important to them) and then we were in the queue for the metal detector to our departure gate after about an hour and a half. After some really grumpy people told us to go various places and changed their minds and stopped to talk to people we got through the metal detector and I went to the bathroom. When I came out, Brian was gone and the area we were in was empty. I walked to the middle of the room and a man ran over from the metal detector and asked to check my back pack. He kneeled on the floor and searched it. Then he ran off and I went back to the crowd at the metal detector where I found Brian. He had been called back and had to wait by the machines while he and a number of other people had their bags re-examined. They didn't tell say anything be he overheard that this was the second time toda something had gotten through that shouldn't have. After being ignored for ten minutes we moved on to our gate but they had locked down the whole area so we were stuck. We waited hallf an hour, in which time our flight took off. I had been bored earlier and read the American Airlines terms and conditions and it turns out you can be rescheduled on another flight free of charge when things like this happen but its on a first come first served basis. Brian asked an attendant where we could rebook a flight and found out it was at gate 37. So once we were free of the lockdown we ran to the rebooking desk where the lady apologised for the fact the next flight was 4 hours away and booked us on it. A queue formed as we were booking our ticket. It was actually really easy to sort out. While exploring the airport burning 4 hours we saw the American in pjamas from before. He was surrounded by airport security, Miami Dade policy and homeland security who had taken his backpack off him. He was the annoying reason we missed our flight.