(no subject)
(the title pretty much sums it up if you dont feel like reading alot...)
so me, chris, karla and dan, went to atlanta this past weekend... it was alot of fun, and it really helped me to get away from here for a bit...kind of going through some rough shit and having my friends around has helped.(thx to kelly, yami, kambrin, and dianne too).
anyway, we got to atlanta wednesday night and got up early thursday to start exploring. we pretty much took the MARTA train all over the city so chris wouldn't have to drive everywhere. thursday morning we headed up to the CNN buliding, to tour the inside. it was really cool to see their newsroom and sets and stuff, so being newsdorks, me and chris realy enjoyed it. i think karla and dan had fun too so thats good. after that we ate lunch at the foodcourt inside the building. after that we headed to the Atlanta Zoo, because we knew it was supposed to rain all the other days so we wanted to get all the outdoor activiites taken care of while we could.
i really liked the zoo, because tehy had alot more stuff than the Columbia one does, plus they had a panda exhibit which i really liked. while we were checking out the tigers, dan got a picture of the male's "area" and proceeded to show everyone... lol. after the zoo we went out to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe... it was sometime during dinner that i told my friends about the breakup, and chris felt bad so he bought me some drinks, haha which did help cause after 2 hurricanes i dindt give two shits about anything.
after that as we were heading on our way back to our train to get to the hotel, i had to pee REALLY bad so i ran inside this other hotel to use their toilet. when i went back outside there was a homeless dude talking to chris. he proceeded to tell us, he got shot in the head the night before and needed money for his prescription... well...we told him we only carried credit so he left us alone. lol.
anyway, friday morning we went to "The World of Coke"(like, the drink, not the drug). it was pretty cool, and they had this thing set up where you could taste coke products from all over the world, so that was neat. after that we went to the ESPN Zone for lunch(after a slight confusion with trying to figure out the bus system). while tehre, a little kid tried climbing up on my chair, and when i looked down at him, he ran away...hahaha, stupid kids. anyway, sometime during eating, chris realized he left his pocket knife at the World of Coke secuirty office...so...he had to go back and get it. he left a little earlier than we did, so he told us to meet him at Centennial Park while he went to get the knife.
as we were sitting there waiting for him, another homeless guy came up and started talking to us about different things. he was quite pleasant, and told us there was going to be some sort of a light show in Centennial Park that night. after talking to him forever, he mentioned he neded some money so me and chris gave him a little, since he wasnt like the other ones we'd run into that were pushy about it... plus he did give us an idea of something we could do later that night.
well we ended up riding around on the train for a while until it got dark, then we went back to the park for the "light show"... it turned out Red Bull was sponsoring this outdoor photography exhibit thing. where photographs were lit up on these giant black cube things. well, karla's foot was hurting her, so she sat down and chris stayed with her, while me and dan walked around looking at the pictures. it took us like 20 minutes to see all of them, and when we got back we saw ANOTHER homeless guy talking to karla and chris. they both looked kind of freaked out and karla says "Guys if were going to see that movie we have to go NOW", so we quickly excused ourselves from the scarry guy... at this point, lighting bolts were flashing across the sky, and i was getting worried because i'm really afraid of lightning.
we make it back to our Train station, and while waiting for our trian, the power at teh station goes out, and everybody starts screaming because it was scarry there in the dark. well, the lights come back on, and FINALLY our trian gets there.we're only on it for a couple minutes before it stops...starts...stops agian...starts again, then makes it to the stop right before ours. the train driver comes over the intercom and says everyone has to deboard the train and that no more trains would be running due to the severe weather... so we get off all freaked out because we didnt know how we'd get to our stop where our car was... well, a few minutes later one final trian comes and we get on it and make it back to our station. it was around this time that we got a call from Chris's mom asking if we ewre okay and she tells us a tornado had just hit downtown............ centennial park.... where we had just been 15 minutes earlier. so of course the four of us freak out, seeing as if it hadn't of been for the homeless guy scaring us off, we would have still been there when it hit.
we get back to our hotel and turn on the local news to see reports of the destruction and we're all just sitting there like "...o....m.....g"... after the intial freaked out wore off, i actually thought it was pretty awesome, because it gave us a cool story to tell.
the next morning we went to cracker barrel for breakfast(karla wasn't too thrilled about that, but chris was tired of the free breakfast at the hotel). afterwards we visited the Fox Theatre and took a tour there. it was very pretty inside. after that we headed to the Aquarium(we had purchased the city pass thing, so we already had tickets for different attractions). the aquarium was packed as hell, because it was rainy and alot of things were closed because of the hurricane. not to mention the basketball game form the night before was postponed because the storm also damaged the georgia dome.
anway, i liked the aquarium because they had a beluga whale exhibit which i thought was really cool. we milled around there for a while, then went back out to centennial park to get pictures of the damage.... there were at least 6 newscrews there covering it, so i thought that was cool we got to see them in action. me and chris actually talked to a couple of the crews and told them how we work at WBTV & CN2. anyway, after seeing the damage up close, my inner-photog went crazy and i bought karlas camera off her so i could get shots of my own. (which still need to be developed). it was pretty crazy. there were some flattened cars, fallen walls, busted out windows...pretty much everything that's to be expected from a tornado.
while wandering around, another homeless guy came up to me and tried to guilt trip me into giving him money. "So i had to stay out in the rain during the tornado and i havent eaten in 24 hours"...i told him i didnt have any money to which he replies "Yes you do. you just think i'll use it for something disrespectful"...to which i didnt say anything and just walked away, lol.
after checking out all the storm damage, we decided to head back to get some food. on our way back ANOTHER homeless guy came up to me and Dan and asked "Do you like poetry?" and i'm all like "No...not really" which he didnt listen to and proceeded to tell us if we gave him ANY subject, he could write a verse about it.....for a small price. so, i kindly explained once again, that i do not like poetry, but that he got an A for Creativity.
that night we were all worn out, so we ended up eating at an italian restaurant 5 minutes form the hotel. it was really good, and after that we called it an "early" night since we planned to get up early sunday morning to go to Six Flags.
we ended up getting a slightly late start due to the fact chris wanted to go to cracker barrel again and it took forever, but we made it to Six Flags and everyone had fun, for the most part. Chris ended up not feeling too well after riding on the "Bat Man" ride, Karla got freaked out when BatMan asked her why she was laughing at him :-) oh and then i went on the "Mind Bender" and as dan said, it shoudl ahve been called the "Colon Bender"......me and that ride, did Not get along. after spending about 5 hours at the park, we had to leave, to try to get back to charlotte before it got too late, since i had to be to work, 9 the next morning.
halfway back, we stopped in Clemson and ate at Wild Wing Cafe...... it took everything i had to keep from calling my boss and saying I wasn't going to be coming in the next morning...
we made it back to Chris, and karla's apartment around 10, and i loaded up my car and drove back to Rock Hill..... I didn't get much, if any, sleep that night(though i was already expecting that would happen) but I made it into work the next day right on time(...even though my aching body was very pissed at me for not calling in).
well....as far as i remember, that's pretty much it.... the first runin with the homeless included a man and a woman who were fighting and the woman tried to turn me and kalra agaisnt the guys, and the guy tried to turn chris and dan against us...... so...that was interesting, lol. guess it should have been a warning of what was to come. haha