Atlanta!

Hey y’all,

This week was relatively full on, but it was nothing compared to the weekend which I spent in Atlanta, Georgia! Although I was battling being sick, it was still a great week and I’ve got plenty to share.

Monday 21 October

Woke up this morning to pouring rain which was kind of unpleasant.

Spent the whole morning and afternoon studying for my journalism midterm I had tonight.

At 4pm, we were supposed to have a tour of the football stadium courtesy of the international office, but due to the weather it was cancelled.

My midterm went alright, and I was finished in 30 minutes so was able to have the rest of the night free. (Side note: I got the grade back and I received a 94%!)

Tuesday 22 October

Today’s classes were okay, but nothing super interesting. However, a guy that always sits near Georgia and I in both of these classes but has rarely ever spoken to us asked me to charge his vape (electric cigarette) through my laptop. It took everything in me not to tell him to “get lost and smoke a real cigarette” (put a lot more nicely than we all know I really would have said it), so I just acted dumb and said it wouldn’t work.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working out a schedule for Atlanta. I didn’t want us to waste our time figuring out what to do like we did in Nashville, so I made up surveys and got the group to submit their answers back to me so I could make plans that everyone liked. Everyone found this hilarious, but friends and family from home know that doing this would have given me great pleasure haha.

Wednesday 23 October

Several of us made a trip to Walmart today, and we even got Georgia onto one of those electric scooters with an attached trolley/cart, so she had fun zipping around the store. As usual, we came out with way more than we needed or expected.

I spent the afternoon finally hanging up my photos and documents above my desk. I’ve never been able to find Blu-tac (they call it putty tape here) in Walmart and it never came in my online order. But finally, after 10 weeks here, I’ve finally got them up! I’ve added a few more things since this pic, so hopefully I can FINALLY post a little room tour soon!

My business negotiation class today was actually so much fun! We spent the entire 2.5 hour class doing a negotiation exercise, which this time was much different to anything we’d done before. Rather than it being 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3, it was 6 ‘teams’ negotiating with and against each other to come to an agreed-upon deal between all of them. Each ‘team’ had 2 students, and there were 2 groups of these 6 ‘teams’ (so basically the class was split in half, and we were seeing which group could get the best deal with the same negotiation). The scenario was that there was a corporation who wanted to build a port, and needed to pose an agreement that 4 out of 5 other entities agreed to in order to get approval for it to go ahead: the federal government, the local government, the environmentalists, the union (this was my team), and the other local ports. The points of negotiation were the amount of federal funding to give to the corporation ($0, $1mil, $2mil or $3mil), how much care to take towards environmental damage (no care, preserve, improve), the industry mix of the industries who would be present on the port (dirty, dirty/clean, all clean), how much union employee representation there would be (unlimited, 2 union employees for every 1 non-union employee, 1 union employee for every 1 non-union employee, the union would have no power to enforce any union quotas), and how much compensation the corporation would pay the other local ports to compensate for the future loss of income they would face by this new port being built ($0, $150k, $300k, $450k, $600k). Each ‘team’ was given information about their interests, such as which of the above to-be-negotiated points were of interest to them and which weren’t. This was also made clear to each team via a points system we all had, where each outcome in a negotiable part was allocated points (for example, since I represented the union, I was able to receive 42 points if the posed agreement included unlimited union representation, 35 for 2:1, 25 for 1:1, and 0 for no power. Likewise, the environmental part did not concern the union at all, so each outcome gave me 0 points), and each team had a minimum number of points that a posed agreement had to add up to in order for them to be allowed to agree to it (the union’s minimum was 50, but each team had different quotas to meet). The activity required us to have 3 rounds of voting, where each time the corporation would pose an agreement and we would vote on it, needing 5/6 of the teams to agree to it. In between votes, we would chat to the other teams, find common interests, and see where we could help each other out. We ended up getting a 5/6 agreement at the second vote, so we were done and happy. After we were done, I had some of my peers ask me heaps about Australia, and then we went into the other room to watch the other team do their final vote.

(Sorry for the long-winded story, I just really enjoyed this activity!)

Dylan picked me up after class and took me back to his place and he cooked me Bratwurst sausages for dinner.

Thursday 24 October

Chilled at Dylan’s this morning before he dropped me back on campus so I could go to class, where w yet again we just watched drug cartel videos.

Did some washing before Dylan picked me up and I went back to his again. Tonight he cooked me steak and fries, and afterwards we walked to the store to buy some cookie dough ice cream.

Friday 25 October

This morning I woke up feeling horrible. My small cold had become a big one, my eye was having what seemed to be early onset conjunctivitis, my throat was scratchy, and my whole body ached. On top of all that, I’d had a really horrible sleep, so when Dylan dropped me back at the dorm this morning, I hopped straight into bed and slept for a few hours.

When I woke up, I felt a bit better. But regardless, I had to get up and get packing because we were heading to Atlanta this afternoon!! Over the next few hours we had people getting to the dorm to get ready for departure, which was planned for 3pm as that’s when the last of our group finished class for the day. We managed to head off by 3:15pm, so we were proud of ourselves.

I managed to get stuck in the car that had 5 people (the other had 4, as there were 9 of us on this trip), and so my back hurt for a lot of the way. However, we made several stops, including in Birmingham, Alabama for dinner at a place I’d found called Melt. This restaurant specialised in gourmet toasted sandwiches, and they were delicious! I had a chicken pesto one with some beer battered fries.

(I ordered the chicken pesto melt. It was great!)

We got to our Airbnb in the outer suburbs of Atlanta around midnight (Atlanta is in the time zone ahead of Mississippi, so we lost an hour, hence why we were so late). We sorted our rooms (I was sharing with Susanna), which posed an inconvenience when we realised that the advertised “4 bedrooms with double beds and a couch that folds out to fit 2 people” actually meant to finish with “a couch that has 2 reclining seat parts that you could use as a bed but is not comfortable at all”. So unfortunately, one person had to sleep on the not-that-wide couch in the living room, with no extra bedding provided. Other than that hiccup, everything was good. We chatted for a little, and then hit the hay as we’d all had a long day.

Saturday 26 October

I’d had another horrible sleep, likely because I was worried that my cold was going to make me snore extra loud and keep Susanna awake. We all woke up later than I’d had on the schedule, but I tried not to stress about being behind schedule and just went with the flow. After all making ourselves breakfast, we finally headed into the city around midday.

The first stop of the day was the famous World of Coca-Cola (for those who don’t know, Coke was invented and first sold in Atlanta in the late 1800s). Upon entering, we received a free coke of our choice before heading into a talk and then into a theatre to watch a not-really-anything-to-do-with-coke feel-good video that made the girls and I cry. We then entered the museum part and spent an hour or so wandering between each of the exhibits. There was a room called The Vault, where the actual vault that they keep the secret Coca-Cola recipe in is kept, and several other exhibits that detailed the history of the drink and the company and its evolution since the 1800s. There was another theatre where we watched a 4D short film (meaning the chairs moved and we were sprayed with water while also wearing 3D glasses) about a guy and a girl trying to solve the mystery of the secret ingredient in Coke (FYI, the secret ingredient is Coke’s loyal customers. How corny). The final room was a taste testing area where there were 5 sections that dispensed soft drinks from 5 different continents (we were very displeased to find that Oceania didn’t have one, although to be fair we don’t really have any unique soft drinks). The soft drinks weren’t anything exotic, as many were simply special flavours of popular brands (e.g. blue raspberry and lemon flavoured Fanta’s) that are only dispensed in certain countries, or other brands that taste like brands we have at home that just have a different name. After browsing the gift shop, we headed out.

(Part of the introductory talk we had upon entering the museum)

(Some vintage dispensers)

(Left to right: Linda (Germany), myself, Ciara (Ireland), Georgia (Aus), CJ (Aus/NZ), Vera (Germany))

(Myself, Georgia (Aus) and Susanna (Scotland))

(Susanna, myself and Georgia)

(The room with the taste testing from different continents)

(An example of what each of the dispensers looked liked)

We ate lunch at Waffle House, which was a fantastic experience. I ate a choc chip waffle, as well as bacon, eggs, toast and a hash brown. The food was delicious – I definitely recommend!

Susanna, Georgia and I then jumped on some Bird scooters (the same ones they had in Nashville) and scooted around the city for about half an hour. Again, we had a ball – they’re soooo much fun!

After our little scoot, we met up with the others and had a browse of Centennial Olympic Park and played in the fountains.

(The whole group!: Al (England), CJ (Aus/NZ), Declan (Scotland), myself, Susanna (Scotland), Ciara (Ireland), Vera (Germany), Georgia (Aus), and Linda (Germany))

We then jumped in some Ubers and headed to Ponce City Market to visit Skyline Park, a rooftop fun park with a cool view of the city. After an Uber mishap where the other group’s Uber was stolen by some random people who got in it and drove off, and after getting in the wrong elevator up to the park, we finally made it up there around 4:30pm. The views were really cool and the park itself had a lot to do. We played around for about an hour, but it eventually started raining and we knew we needed to leave soon in order to prepare for our night activities.

CJ, Al, Declan, Vera and Linda were heading to an NBA game, so they caught an Uber back into town, and Georgia, Susanna, Ciara and I headed back to the Airbnb because the gig we were going to tonight wasn’t until a fair bit later. This allowed me to get in a solid hour and bit nap before we had to get ready. The nap didn’t make me feel a whole lot better, but it gave me a bit more energy. We dolled up and the others got a few drinks into them before we eventually headed off to the Buckhead Theatre at about 8:45pm. When we got there, the last of the supporting acts was finishing up, so we knew that Bea Miller would be coming on soon. She eventually came on just after 10pm and played until 11pm. Her live vocals were incredible, and she was entertaining, too. After her first song, she pointed to a guy in the crowd near the front of the stage and jokingly called him out for blocking the view of everyone behind him because he was so much taller. The show was great, despite her not singing one of my favourite songs of hers.

The group who were at the NBA game had gone back and picked up the cars where we left them this morning and came and grabbed us from the concert. We popped into a Maccas drive-thru, and then headed back to the Airbnb. Initially we’d planned to go out tonight to a bar, but upon arriving home, everyone hit a wall except Georgia. We then spent a solid 15 minutes convincing drunk Georgia that we could just have a fun night drinking in the Airbnb, but she wasn’t having it, and kept saying she was just going to go out by herself. She eventually gave up and went to bed, and the rest of us spent the night hanging out downstairs before we decided to hit the hay around 2am.

Sunday 27 October

I finally woke up feeling rested and a bit better! We quickly raced to get ready and pack our stuff, because we all woke up around 10:30am and had to check out by 11am.

After packing the cars, we ventured out to find a place for brunch, but we couldn’t find anywhere that wasn’t chockers. Eventually CJ, Al, Vera and I split off because the aimless driving around was wasting time and we were going to be late for our event. We quickly found parking, popped into a café to get a drink and snack, and walked over to the famous Mercedes Benz Stadium because we were going to the Seattle Seahawks v Atlanta Falcons NFL game!!! We were so excited, and walking up to the stadium was such a buzz! After a little mishap with Vera and I bringing bags that were too big and having to check them into a concierge, we eventually got into the stadium.

We were instantly wowed by how massive it was, especially when we made it to our seats on the highest level and looked down on everything! The game was super enjoyable and there was constant entertainment, and we had some giggles chanting Ole Miss chants over the top of the Atlanta Falcons ones. To be completely honest, I enjoy the Ole Miss games more than I enjoyed this NFL game, I think mostly because I have way more of a personal connection to and vested interest in the Ole Miss team. The game finished just after 4, we grabbed a few last pics, collected our bags, and headed back to the car. We started making our way home from here.

The original plan was to stop again in Birmingham, Alabama for dinner with the other group, but they’d been having way too much fun chilling at a park all day that they were over an hour behind us on the road and everyone was short on money, so we instead stopped at a Maccas and kept going on the road.

CJ, Al, Vera and I got back to campus around 10:30pm (gaining an hour coming back into central time zone), and I crashed into bed. The others arrived back around 12:30pm, but I was already asleep by then.

So that was my week and my exciting weekend in Atlanta! I’m still feeling under the weather, but I’ll hopefully start feeling better now that I’m back home and not doing as much. It’s Halloween next week so hopefully I’ll have some fun things going on!

- Emily xx