Soon after finishing my previous post, I decided that I may as well go and if worse came to worse at least it'd make a great "awful trip" post. Now that it's all said and done, I gotta say...it wasn't bad after all.
Friday, March 24, 2017
Woke up at 2 am having packed and prepped and gotten to bed before 8 pm Thursday night. Despite the off hour, I wasn't that tired, but all this deviation from my regular sleep pattern did give me a perpetual feeling of jet lag and just a general lack of energy overall and these symptoms would persist throughout the weekend more or less. But I strove forward.
Got to OIA satellite parking around 4:00 but since I parked in the South lot, the shuttle dropped me off at my terminal a bit later than I'd expected. And time was ticking since my plane was set to leave at 5:02.
Made my way to security and though in the past the TSA folks here in Orlando seemed much less Gestapo than other airports, it seems this "rabid dog attitude" has now seeped into the crew here.
Since it was 4:30 in the morning, the roped off maze that was set-up for travelers to file into like good little sheep was quite moot as there was just one guy ahead of me. He saw it too and he maneuvered under the ropes to go straight to the security check podium. So I followed suit, but since I wasn't as nimble, I accidentally tripped the stretchy fabric ribbon and it popped out of its post and quickly retracted, like a retractable tape measure, into its other post. One of the TSA agents went to re-string up the ribbon and came to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said "You're supposed to go through the queue properly!" or some snarky remark like that, telling me off. I just ignored the fucker and proceeded to the podium. God forbid you don't respect their authority! Even if there's no one else in the queue and you just did what the guy in front of you did.
It did get me to pause just enough to spot a shiny little copper coin on the floor just before the security check point. Since I was wearing my contacts I couldn't make out details of the coin but I could tell immediately that though it was the same color and size as a penny, it wasn't one. Once I got to my gate I still couldn't make out the markings so I took a picture of it with my phone and blew up the image. It was a Bahamas penny. Cool.
Of course I sat down for only a couple of seconds as by now my flight was calling last boarding. The plane was packed solid. I guess for the cheap rates Frontier was selling these seats at, a lot of folks did like me and woke their ass up early in order to take advantage of them.
The flight was a quick hour and a half and after deplaning I saw that Atlanta's airport was a bustling madhouse of activity...even though it was just 6:30 in the morning. With tons of time on my hands, I made my way aimlessly through the many concourses, sometimes taking the rapid transit train but other times riding the moving sidewalk through the connecting corridors to witness amazing details like this area which was decked out with a simulated rainforest motif right down to background sounds of running water, rushing wind, and squawking birds. Very cool.
All the eateries were jammed packed and, of course, expensive so I opted for just a small bag of cashews and a Vitaminwater Zero from a gift shop ($7.50).
I people-watched for a couple of hours but after getting antsy to move on I made my way to the MARTA terminal, bought a weekend Breeze pass ($18), and made my way into the deep, dark heart of the Black Mecca.
Now let me defend myself before I go on any further. First off, I'm not the one to come up with the term the Black Mecca, Atlanta, it turns out, has long held that title. But this trip was my first hand experience of it in person and it was just a bit freaky. Having always lived in white majority communities (even the parts of New Orleans I lived and worked in) this was (pardon my comparison, I don't mean it to sound crudely racist) like I was Taylor and I just landed on the Planet of the Apes.
I rode the train through to Peachtree Center and in order to emerge from the deep-ass bowels of the subway platform, I had to white-knuckle it riding up this incredibly steep and high beast I would dub, the Death Escalator. Here's my pic looking up and some guy's video going down it.
And just like this video, it was a loooong, creaky, creepily-lit fright ride. The moving handrail and steps were not totally in sync either so you had to move your death grip every now and then or it would pull you down. I'm still researching if anyone has ever fallen on this thing. Surely there have been deaths. With my top heavy body and severe acrophobia, I was shittin' bricks!
At the top of this thing is the just below street level MARTA station and to the right is a rather dated mall with a few shops and stores but it seems to mainly function as a fast food food court.
I walked through here and across one of the areas many skybridges to the Courtland Street garage, took the elevator down 7 stories to ground level (Huh? Wasn't the mall just below street level? Yes, but because it was at the top of the hill which seems to be the center of the downtown crop of sky scrapers, it worked out to be 7 stories up when I made it over to the street my hotel was on.)
The hotel is definitely in the midst of major renovation but the lobby looked decent enough, albeit it, like my room, seems to have been lay-overs from the last update I'd guess, maybe around the late nineties from the looks of it? No matter, fact is I was here for a cheap rate so I wasn't expecting brand-spankin' new.
Happily, when I got to the registration desk, I was allowed to check in right away even though it was only 10 am. I dragged my tired, sweaty ass to the glass elevator and up to the 13th floor, got in my room, took a nice hot shower and sat looking out over the scenery below for a while before taking a short nap.
Around 3:00 I was getting really hungry and when I had walked across the skybridge earlier, I thought I saw a sign for the Hard Rock Cafe down below. I decided I'd walk over there for a burger and a beer or two but when I got there, it turns out it was only a billboard for the Hard Rock Cafe. I thought I had seen on a map when I originally scoped out the city days ago that it was not far away so I made my way towards the area I thought it would be and trudged up a steep incline back up towards Peachtree Street. On the way, I noticed a tiny liquor store and made note of it.
Getting near to Peachtree Street I couldn't see it, just saw a Hooters on the corner and I'm not a lover of that so I opted to head into the nearby entrance to the Peachtree Center Mall again and grab something there. (Turns out that the Hard Rock was right across from Hooters so I was closer than I thought.) I got two subs from Firehouse subs ($14) figuring I'd have one once I got back to the room and store the other in the mini fridge for the next morning. I also went back to that liquor store and got a six-pack of Dogfish 60 Minute IPA ($13).
Back in my room I watched as the shadows got longer, munchin' my Italian fully engaged sub, sippin' some nice hoppy ale and soon was down for the count. After forcing myself to watch "Live Free or Die Hard" on HBO, I got under the covers of my quite comfortable bed and was out like a light.
Friday, March 24, 2017
Woke up at 2 am having packed and prepped and gotten to bed before 8 pm Thursday night. Despite the off hour, I wasn't that tired, but all this deviation from my regular sleep pattern did give me a perpetual feeling of jet lag and just a general lack of energy overall and these symptoms would persist throughout the weekend more or less. But I strove forward.
Got to OIA satellite parking around 4:00 but since I parked in the South lot, the shuttle dropped me off at my terminal a bit later than I'd expected. And time was ticking since my plane was set to leave at 5:02.
Made my way to security and though in the past the TSA folks here in Orlando seemed much less Gestapo than other airports, it seems this "rabid dog attitude" has now seeped into the crew here.
Since it was 4:30 in the morning, the roped off maze that was set-up for travelers to file into like good little sheep was quite moot as there was just one guy ahead of me. He saw it too and he maneuvered under the ropes to go straight to the security check podium. So I followed suit, but since I wasn't as nimble, I accidentally tripped the stretchy fabric ribbon and it popped out of its post and quickly retracted, like a retractable tape measure, into its other post. One of the TSA agents went to re-string up the ribbon and came to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said "You're supposed to go through the queue properly!" or some snarky remark like that, telling me off. I just ignored the fucker and proceeded to the podium. God forbid you don't respect their authority! Even if there's no one else in the queue and you just did what the guy in front of you did.
It did get me to pause just enough to spot a shiny little copper coin on the floor just before the security check point. Since I was wearing my contacts I couldn't make out details of the coin but I could tell immediately that though it was the same color and size as a penny, it wasn't one. Once I got to my gate I still couldn't make out the markings so I took a picture of it with my phone and blew up the image. It was a Bahamas penny. Cool.
Of course I sat down for only a couple of seconds as by now my flight was calling last boarding. The plane was packed solid. I guess for the cheap rates Frontier was selling these seats at, a lot of folks did like me and woke their ass up early in order to take advantage of them.
The flight was a quick hour and a half and after deplaning I saw that Atlanta's airport was a bustling madhouse of activity...even though it was just 6:30 in the morning. With tons of time on my hands, I made my way aimlessly through the many concourses, sometimes taking the rapid transit train but other times riding the moving sidewalk through the connecting corridors to witness amazing details like this area which was decked out with a simulated rainforest motif right down to background sounds of running water, rushing wind, and squawking birds. Very cool.
All the eateries were jammed packed and, of course, expensive so I opted for just a small bag of cashews and a Vitaminwater Zero from a gift shop ($7.50).
I people-watched for a couple of hours but after getting antsy to move on I made my way to the MARTA terminal, bought a weekend Breeze pass ($18), and made my way into the deep, dark heart of the Black Mecca.
Now let me defend myself before I go on any further. First off, I'm not the one to come up with the term the Black Mecca, Atlanta, it turns out, has long held that title. But this trip was my first hand experience of it in person and it was just a bit freaky. Having always lived in white majority communities (even the parts of New Orleans I lived and worked in) this was (pardon my comparison, I don't mean it to sound crudely racist) like I was Taylor and I just landed on the Planet of the Apes.
I rode the train through to Peachtree Center and in order to emerge from the deep-ass bowels of the subway platform, I had to white-knuckle it riding up this incredibly steep and high beast I would dub, the Death Escalator. Here's my pic looking up and some guy's video going down it.
And just like this video, it was a loooong, creaky, creepily-lit fright ride. The moving handrail and steps were not totally in sync either so you had to move your death grip every now and then or it would pull you down. I'm still researching if anyone has ever fallen on this thing. Surely there have been deaths. With my top heavy body and severe acrophobia, I was shittin' bricks!
At the top of this thing is the just below street level MARTA station and to the right is a rather dated mall with a few shops and stores but it seems to mainly function as a fast food food court.
I walked through here and across one of the areas many skybridges to the Courtland Street garage, took the elevator down 7 stories to ground level (Huh? Wasn't the mall just below street level? Yes, but because it was at the top of the hill which seems to be the center of the downtown crop of sky scrapers, it worked out to be 7 stories up when I made it over to the street my hotel was on.)
Happily, when I got to the registration desk, I was allowed to check in right away even though it was only 10 am. I dragged my tired, sweaty ass to the glass elevator and up to the 13th floor, got in my room, took a nice hot shower and sat looking out over the scenery below for a while before taking a short nap.
Around 3:00 I was getting really hungry and when I had walked across the skybridge earlier, I thought I saw a sign for the Hard Rock Cafe down below. I decided I'd walk over there for a burger and a beer or two but when I got there, it turns out it was only a billboard for the Hard Rock Cafe. I thought I had seen on a map when I originally scoped out the city days ago that it was not far away so I made my way towards the area I thought it would be and trudged up a steep incline back up towards Peachtree Street. On the way, I noticed a tiny liquor store and made note of it.
Getting near to Peachtree Street I couldn't see it, just saw a Hooters on the corner and I'm not a lover of that so I opted to head into the nearby entrance to the Peachtree Center Mall again and grab something there. (Turns out that the Hard Rock was right across from Hooters so I was closer than I thought.) I got two subs from Firehouse subs ($14) figuring I'd have one once I got back to the room and store the other in the mini fridge for the next morning. I also went back to that liquor store and got a six-pack of Dogfish 60 Minute IPA ($13).
Back in my room I watched as the shadows got longer, munchin' my Italian fully engaged sub, sippin' some nice hoppy ale and soon was down for the count. After forcing myself to watch "Live Free or Die Hard" on HBO, I got under the covers of my quite comfortable bed and was out like a light.