The 'Dirty' South

After an 18 or so hour train ride – almost sleeping some of the way, almost awake for the rest of the time, no doubt thought that the train is heaps better than the bus. I wish I’d known about the rail pass earlier. Whatever, it’s all been an experience. Anyway, yeah, after the train ride into Jacksonville, Florida (sitting in the train station waiting for Caroline watching local Television and learning about how proud some 12 year olds apparently are about having sex…) we drove a couple of hours into Tallahassee. On the way we stopped at a Wendy’s for lunch, just as a busload of old people arrived. Standing in line, an elderly man started chatting to us and soon asked where I was from; telling me then that he really likes Steve Irwin (I didn’t want to mention that he’d died, as I wasn’t too sure that he knew) then he said that he was 91. I was impressed – he seriously didn’t look a day over 89. He did seem to have all his faculties though, which is impressive, and he’d had a full and interesting life – of which he gave me the abridged version – navy, merchant marines, carpenter, etc… then he asked me an interesting question – he said that trees in the northern hemisphere for whatever reason have a tendency to “twist” to the left, and he wondered if in the southern hemisphere they twisted in the opposite direction… It stumped me, but I said I would try to find out. Not that that will help him, but now I want to know. And I guess… Well… whatever, if anyone knows the answer to that, let me know. That would be cool.

Anyway, so we went to Tallahassee, Caroline, her friend Kim, and me. Them tired from they’re 4 day trip to Vegas, and me from my epic train ride… we drove in relative silence… not uncomfortable, just exhausted… which was fine… in fact, I was semi-surprised by the lack of uncomfortableness… was good. Anyway, yeah, we got to Tallahassee and Caroline’s place, a nice apartment in a quiet part of town, chatted for a little while, checked our emails and then pretty much passed out. Later that evening we met with Kim for Mexican, nearly went out drinking, but instead decided that we were all still tired, so we went back to sleep. Probably had my best nights sleep in 2 weeks. The next day we decided to head to Atlanta.
Firstly I’d like to say that I rarely make judgments on places before I’ve seen them. Of course there are exceptions – LA and Miami… I guess would be the 2 that stand out the most, and are the 2 places that I really have no inclination to go see just now. I mean, at some point, sure, but just not right now. So when Caroline suggested that we headed up to Atlanta for a few days (her boyfriend and his friend were going to be there at some point too) I was like, yeah, sounds good. But even though mum and dad have been there, and told me good things, I had no strong feelings on the subject in either direction, completely neutral (I guess it’s my Swiss heritage coming out). I was pleasantly surprised. I like Atlanta. I like it a lot… the people over all were friendly, the subway, while limited to a rough cross, was fast, efficient, clean, and probably the newest that I’ve seen so far, the city itself was similar, clean, new, and barring some issues with their roads not making a lot of sense, seemed to be laid out quite nicely. Anyway, we stayed with Caroline’s College friend Rick. Really nice guy (after some initial skepticism on his behalf of our odd friendship) and his couch, while extremely ‘compact’ was very comfortable.

The first night there we decided to catch a movie and get dinner at the same time... Checking the internet we found a movie that we both wanted to see, and then with the miracle of the internet, got a map and directions there. It was the best accident of the trip so far, we found an awesome little area with restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, and a really cool cinema. SO we got dinner, and went and watched Zodiac. Good movie – apart from about half way through, I realized that my wallet wasn’t in my pocket. After searching frantically around the chairs, and a couple of dashes out to the service area to see if anyone had handed it in (both times I came back into the theatre the same thing seemed to be being said in the movie) I tried to relax and watch the movie. Nothing more could be done for now… I started going through what I’d have to do when I got back – call credit card companies, etc, call mum and dad and organize then to send the cards up to Shannon’s my plans for New Orleans would have been shot, and I’d have to borrow money from Caroline to get the bus from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, but then be stuffed cause I wouldn’t be able to pay for accommodation for the night in NYC… so yeah, I didn’t pay that much attention to the rest of the movie – Caroline said that I sighed heavily several times which I don’t remember, but can imagine would make sense. Anyway, the movie seemed to go on forever, at the end of it I went up to a police officer and told him my plight, he calmly grabbed a torch and we went back into the theatre and obviously a veteran of many lost wallets, especially in this theatre, quickly located it. Between the seats inside the armrest in a little pocket seemingly designed for hiding wallets in.

Relieved I slept will that night.

The next day we met Bart and his Danish friend Simon for the Coke museum, and later for dinner, and then Caroline, myself, Rick and his girlfriend, went out to a bar for a few drinks. That was fun… played a drinking game with a jug of some pretty terrible beer… anyway, the next day we went to the Atlanta Aquarium… by far the best aquarium I’ve ever been to… really amazing… they were almost more a SeaWorld than an aquarium, they had beluga whales, otters, seals, etc, as well as the norms. Really good.

Anyway, then we got a couple of hotel rooms and Simon and I went out drinking while Bart and Caroline “caught up” and we got back at about 3am… if you take into account daylight savings starting and us loosing an hour somewhere.

And now I’m on the train… which has been good… sitting with a single mum and her 2 kids, really funny. An old lady sitting in front of me asked me if I had kids cause “you’re really great with kids… you should have kids” *coughs* one day… one day…

Now I’m tired again, time for a nap…

Ciao.



Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. - Russell Baker