Atlanta day five

[snugglekitty]

I knew that Tuesday was my last full day in Atlanta and it was after a day of rest, so, if I was going to have any further adventures, Tuesday they would have to be. I decided to take the MARTA back to Little Five Points. I hadn't spent enough time there on Sunday. (Here the threatening music starts.)



I figured out how to get there, and made careful plans about what I should bring with me and when I should leave. (The ominous music gets a little louder.) I decided I would leave well before lunchtime and eat while I was out. I got the hotel shuttle to the train station. I stepped out of the van, was shuffling my bags around and hoping the transit system would be easy to use... (The music swells.) I didn't look where I was going and tripped over a curb. I fell hard, landing on my hands and knees. I got scrapes on the former and nasty bruises on the latter, with some arm muscle strain into the bargain. "Ow ow OWWW!" I said. The driver of the van ran over, asking me repeatedly if I was okay, to which I replied faintly, "I'm not sure, give me a minute." After a little while, I took an inventory and discovered I was not seriously hurt. After another little while, I had the driver haul me to my feet, and limped painfully into the train station.

"Why?" you say? Why not go back to the hotel, recuperate, take an aspirin, put my feet up? All I can say is that it didn't occur to me at the time. My brain was not functioning well so following my previously set plan was all that occurred to it (which is one reason self defense classes are so important, if you follow my reasoning). So, I purchased some train tickets and went down into the station. I got on the correct train, sat down, and calmed myself after a while. I was and am grateful for how easily I escaped. I could have hit my head, broken a limb, or dislocated one of my knees again. None of those things happened. Still, I am not accident-prone - this is more injured than I usually get, and it threw me.

I transferred trains and took the right one in the wrong direction. I realized my error after only a few stops (not bad considering my state of mind and lack of familiarity with the system). I took the train back again and got off at the correct stop. I went outside and looked for the street my directions told me to take to get to L5P.

I didn't see it. At all. Then I kind of ran out of cope. I didn't feel safe (there were guys wandering around and looking at me in a way that's probably normal for the area but felt scary at the time), I was hurt, upset, and by this point, hungry. I called trouble4hire, and because she is such a super-terrific girlfriend and human being, she gave me directions that got me where I needed to go. It wasn't a far walk, thankfully.

Then I wandered around until I found a restaurant that had both tables and lighting, which took more searching than you might think. I wound up at the Brewhouse Cafe. At first their sports paraphenalia turned me off, then I realized it was all for soccer! The menu explained that I was in "the premiere soccer bar in the Southeast." Very cool, though I suspect they probably haven't got much competition.

I ate a delicious meal. Then I walked up the street. A store caught my eye - pretty window displays of mobiles and other nice things. I had noticed it before, and was curious about its name - the sign out front looked abstract to me. I went on in. The mobiles were unlike any others that I had seen before. (This is like the one I bought, except that the one I bought is silver-colored.) They had an eclectic collection of other things - handblown vases, jewelry, handbags. Everyone but me sees where this is going already, right? I took a few steps further in and discovered that the rest of the store was selling handblown pipes. Now, I am not and have never been a smoker, but if I smoked, children, I'd want one of those pipes for my stuff. Gorgeous, mostly art glass. I imagine that most of their profits come from folks buying pipes, not the stuff in the front. But I don't care. I complimented one of the salespeople on the beautiful things in the store, bought a large mobile, and headed out. Not until I saw the receipt did I fully understand - the name of the store was 42 degrees, in other words, 420. A word to the wise - this only clues people in if they can read your sign. (I tried to find a picture of the sign to show y'all but failed.) But maybe the clientele they hope to attract are those who are already intoxicated? Maybe it's obvious that it says "420" if you're stoned. Who knows. Anyway, it was still the nicest headshop I've ever visited.

The next stop on my trip was the f_butterfly-recommended A Capella Books. It is not a large store, but it took me five minutes to find the genre fiction - it was cleverly hidden in the room with the rare books I had been wary of sneezing on. More misdirection! But I persevered. I got a few paperbacks for the plane, to replace the reading material I had deemed too depressing and thoughtful to distract one pleasantly from defying the laws of gravity. (The Element of Fire, Insurrection, and Pyramid Scheme, if you want to know.) I could tell by this point that I was running out of energy, even though I'd only been there an hour. I knew that I still had a long trip back, so I told myself I would stop in at RagORama, get a snack for the road, and head back.

I walked over to the thrift store. I still didn't get to look at everything- they have Racks of Holding aplenty - but I tried on some tops, and bought a pleasingly outlandish pair of sunglasses that teratomarty has termed pimptastic. (It's a fair cop. They kind of have horned rims. And wings.) I trudged back to the train station with a smoothie and a bag of potato chips. I took the right trains in the right direction, didn't get off at the right stop but found my way back to the hotel anyway, and had about an hour to relax before mrpet got off work.

He wanted us to go out for barbecue with his coworkers at a place called Fat Matt's. After some negotiation, I agreed. I'm glad I did, because the pulled pork was delicious and the live blues act was very neat. If you're thinking that this sounds like Red Bones with a stage, you'd be wrong. Oh so wrong. We're not talking about a place with interesting wall art, bottled foreign beer, and portabella burgers. The food choices are these: beef ribs, pork ribs, pulled pork, 1/2 or 1/4 chicken, baked beans, sweet potato pie. If you choose the "sandwich" option your meat comes with a few pieces of wonderbread. Vegetarians beware, I'm not exaggerating just to make a good story! Beverage choices are beer (don't ask what kind) and soft drinks. It was kind of fun, though it's not a place I'd want to go every time - eating something like a pound of meat with no other calories coming in is not what my body is used to.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was thinking well enough to put Neosporin on my scrapes and take an aspirin. I had a hot bath and went to bed shortly thereafter.



Here's a question - how do you know/decide whether and how much to tip people? Looking back over the trip, I tipped someone who went out of her way to accomodate me, who seemed quite surprised that I gave her money, and someone else whose service was fine but not especially inspired seemed surprised that I didn't tip him. Hmmm.

Comments

[veek.livejournal.com]

That's quite the adventure you had. I'm glad you had it – sympathetic to the pain, but the story will be with you for ages after the bruises have healed!

In restaurants etc., unless the service was remarkably bad, I tend to tip 20%. This is partly the result of my long-time faithful readership of the Waiter Rant blog. This, plus the compulsive desire to help people be satisfied with what they earn in a $timeperiod (abysmal with just a wage and no tips, in some professions), results in my tipping anyone providing a tippable service 20% when I can. Unless they're really screwing up.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

I feel very comfortable and confident about tipping waiters, hairdressers, etc, a consistent 20%. This includes if something goes wrong with my food - waiters don't generally have much control over that. The place where I get confused is with, say, hotel shuttle drivers. People who have this job where they do things for you, but it's not very clear how much they get paid or what the expectation is...

[veek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have trouble with that as well, and tend to give someone a dollar to three if in doubt.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

The whole "percentage of the cost" thing doesn't work so well when the service is free. A couple dollars seems about right to me, if the person did something nice for me.