#olympic park

Getting very lazy with blog posts but finally have some time! Last weekend we went to Atlanta for the night, as we had tickets to see Bombay Bicycle Club, and it was so much fun.

We rode the Megabus early on Saturday morning (6.30am, aah!), so we could get there for about 10.30, and then have the day to spend in Atlanta. It was SO cold on the Megabus, obviously we were all trying to sleep, but I was absolutely freezing as I was wearing a skirt so couldn’t really get off. Other than that the bus is great! Theres TV’s that apparently show films on the longer journeys, and theres free WiFi, so you can pretty much find something to amuse you on the way.

Once we got there we went to get breakfast and then dropped our stuff off at the hotel. We managed to get the Holiday Inn for $110 for the four of us, what a bargain, and they’re always really clean and comfortable. After we’d dropped the bags off, we went to look around the Olympic Park, which was really cool. It was really interesting as there was all sorts of monuments for the different athletes and countries. It was cool as there was a monument that included our very own Steve Redgrave!

We then went on to the CNN tour which was really cool. It takes you up the biggest free-standing escalator in the world (interesting stuff) into this massive globe, and then you make you’re way down to the bottom again through all the studios. We got to look at all the newsrooms, and watched one of the anchors hosting live.

We then went to the Martin Luther King site, which I’d already been to with my family a few years ago, but was still so interesting to see again. We wanted to walk there from where we were Downtown, but we ended up having to walk right through the ‘ghetto’ part of town, which was actually quite scary. I know that parts of Atlanta can be dangerous, but we just sort of ended up there! Anyway we got to the site and it was amazing. We went into the church that MLK grew up in and preached in until his death, which was so interesting. They have it all laid out in the same way it was when he was there, and theres a recording of his voice thats played on repeat, and it’s definitely a strange feeling as it is still sad. We went to the museum which is even sadder. I was nearly crying because there is these awful photos of his parents at his funeral which are just really hard to look at. The thought that all this was going on in my parents lifetimes is just so crazy to me, it definitely puts race issues into perspective. Here we are sat infront of he and his wife’s tomb:

After this we were (as you can imagine) VERY tired, so we went back to the hotel to get ready for the gig. I’d never heard much of Bombay Bicycle Club, but they were really really good! One of my favourite things to do is go and watch bands that I don’t really know, because I always think you like songs more if you hear them live. Also, we met one of the band members at the end, and as they’re an English band he was suprised at four English girls turning up to see them in Atlanta1

On Sunday before we got the bus home we went to this really cool underground mall for a few hours where I finally bought myself some new trainers and now all ready to get back to the gym! While we were at this mall went to Eddie Rockets which is the American diner and we had milkshake which I guess is very authentic!

On the way back to the bus stop we got to see the Captiol building which has some cool statues, for example of Jimmy Carter. Obviously we had such a great weekend but I was absolutely knackered by then and was pretty glad to get back to Knoxville!