Exciting Day

Today was jam-packed full of activity. We woke up after sleeping for around 10 hours. Kate and I began the day by eating breakfast or lunch at Toomers Drugs, the oldest building in Auburn. I managed to grab a photo of their menu, and of my beautiful girlfriend sitting at the counter. The drinks from the soda fountain were extremely good! I doubt they were very good for us, since they were likely around 1000 calories each, but nice. The food was all right, but not as noteworthy as the soda fountain.




After eating, Kate and I thought it would be interesting to drive to Atlanta and check out the big city. Atlanta was a little bit over an hour away, but luckily my professor gave us TomTom to keep us on track! This GPS unit is awesome, it had a bunch of Auburn and Atlanta maps downloaded to it, a mock 3D view of the car and all the roads as well as a very friendly voice. Unfortunately TomTom did sometimes give slightly confusing directions such as "Turn right, but stay left then left" which were on occasion a cause for turmoil between me and my girlfriend. Katie was a very patient and skillful driver, even with TomTom's sometimes confusing directions.

We were planning on seeing the world headquarters of Coka-Cola, but due to the 'surprise' time change between Alabama and Georgia, we didn't make it in time. Kate was somewhat discouraged, but we didn't let it bring us down much. Instead we explored the city, starting with the CNN headquarters.

This is us in front of the CNN building. Unfortunately, we did not have many additional people to take pictures of us together. However, Kate was able to solve that problem by asking a homeless man to take our picture when we were inside the building. Luckily, he did not run away with Kate's disposable camera, but I did feel as though I had to give him a dollar.

Kate inside the CNN Building

The CNN building was HUGE. An entire mall food court was housed on the ground level, as well as a hotel and about 15 miscellaneous shops. The upper portion of the building appeared to be all offices and other space devoted to running CNN.

My favorite portion of the building was the large collection of different flags. The combination of light and color with the architecture was very pleasant.

After finishing with CNN, we decided to explore "The Underground" which is a converted subway station into a mall. As we started to walk toward "The Underground" a homeless guy started talking with us. Amazingly, this homeless guy was nonthreatening and not disgusting.
He spoke with us about the history of Atlanta, their New Year's celebration, all the stores in the underground, all the while leading us there in a very cheerful way. Dave was this fellows name, and he was a life-long Atlanta resident. Once he made sure we had arrived safely at "The Underground" complete with numerous tourist pamphlets, he asked for money. In an uncharacteristic move, I gave him a couple of bucks. At least this homeless dude had a pitch, and tour pamphlets ready.

Dave - Our Homeless Tour Guide - Camera Phone with no Flash

"The Underground" had many nice stores. While in a candy shop, the store attendant gave us some pecan pralines to try. I ended up buying a handful and Kate purchased some candied nuts. I don't believe we purchased anything else.

The drive home only had one small hiccup, due to TomTom, but we made it back to the hotel to enjoy a nice dinner and a few drinks before we went to sleep.