23 March 2008
Panama City, Florida
28/03/08 14:05
The sweet music of
Georgia has left my ears. I haven’t heard the
soothing, yet often utterly incomprehensible accent
of the local who presumes that I’m a native and with
the intend of being polite, starts a conversation.
This often results in me being completely befuddled
and desperate to recover, by trying to find out what
we’re talking about as we talk.
Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. But almost every time I seem to order something more than I wanted, like an extra side of fries and buffalo wings for my Trippledecker mega bacon-cheese burger, and apparently extra sugar in my Sweet Georgia Tea (apologies to those at home unable to get sugar due to a world shortage, I must’ve gotten it all).
After a few days in Florida (truly) The Sunshine State, I’ve succeeded in lowering my blood sugar levels again (at least to that of a six year old who just hammered his way through a pound of chocolate-caffein ice cream). Luckily I found a gym at the last hotel we stayed at and managed to get some training time - which I celebrated with a Bacon Cheeseburger at Hardee’s in Crawfordville, Florida.
Crawfordville was incredible. Upon entering you can feel changes in the time/space continuum. It's as if everything is turned down a notch. At one place we visited, the guy behind the counter was literally asleep when we entered, and as soon as he had served us, and was sure that we didn’t need anything else he fell asleep again, this time face down at the counter. The food was terrible, and Jacob swore his coke tasted as if it had been scraped off the ground (I politely, though firmly declined to taste it). After finishing our ‘food’ we left the “Huddle House” without waking the waiter, and talked about how much we missed the hospitality of Georgia.
Panama City is a
lovely place. It doesn’t have the atmosphere of
learning that we found in Athens, but it sure has the
leisure. We seem to have landed in a group of
liberals and artists, staying at the home of Mark - a
semi retired pharmacist, artist and civil liberties
activist. So all in all a crowd quite similar to
ourselves. We’ve been here less than 24 hours and so
far we’ve attended a gay movie night at the local art
gallery, been invited to hook up with three different
people and are being greeted at the coffee bar, that
our host Mark prefers, by the waitress with “So what
are you guys up to today?”. So the hospitality of the
locals seem endless (at least we haven’t met the
boundaries yet)
The Coffee bar is called “Trigo”, and should you ever find yourself within driving distance of Panama City I suggest that you go there. I got a serving of croissants and a Cafe Latte today that would have made Proust change the content of the famous tea and Madeleine cookie scene, and no I didn’t dunk my croissant!
Apparently spring break is in town, but I must admit that I haven’t seen anything of it yet. I think we’ll go have a look later, but I must admit that if I wanted to experience drunk young people making asses of themselves I would’ve stayed in Denmark.
One thing that
really helps set an easygoing atmosphere is the 25
mph speed limit they have. It’s impossible to go
anywhere in a hurry, and it seems that
everyone
is just cruising around
with their windows down. And if it gets a bit too
warm you just follow Harrison Road down to the Civic
Center, which is by the sea. The soft, yet soothing
winds will do you good. As the truly inept dane I am,
I succeeded in getting my hands sunburnt while
reading the newspaper. But at least the top of my
head doesn’t have that luminous red shrimp-like color
anymore.
Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. But almost every time I seem to order something more than I wanted, like an extra side of fries and buffalo wings for my Trippledecker mega bacon-cheese burger, and apparently extra sugar in my Sweet Georgia Tea (apologies to those at home unable to get sugar due to a world shortage, I must’ve gotten it all).
After a few days in Florida (truly) The Sunshine State, I’ve succeeded in lowering my blood sugar levels again (at least to that of a six year old who just hammered his way through a pound of chocolate-caffein ice cream). Luckily I found a gym at the last hotel we stayed at and managed to get some training time - which I celebrated with a Bacon Cheeseburger at Hardee’s in Crawfordville, Florida.
Crawfordville was incredible. Upon entering you can feel changes in the time/space continuum. It's as if everything is turned down a notch. At one place we visited, the guy behind the counter was literally asleep when we entered, and as soon as he had served us, and was sure that we didn’t need anything else he fell asleep again, this time face down at the counter. The food was terrible, and Jacob swore his coke tasted as if it had been scraped off the ground (I politely, though firmly declined to taste it). After finishing our ‘food’ we left the “Huddle House” without waking the waiter, and talked about how much we missed the hospitality of Georgia.
The Coffee bar is called “Trigo”, and should you ever find yourself within driving distance of Panama City I suggest that you go there. I got a serving of croissants and a Cafe Latte today that would have made Proust change the content of the famous tea and Madeleine cookie scene, and no I didn’t dunk my croissant!
Apparently spring break is in town, but I must admit that I haven’t seen anything of it yet. I think we’ll go have a look later, but I must admit that if I wanted to experience drunk young people making asses of themselves I would’ve stayed in Denmark.
|
Athens, Georgia
24/03/08 15:06
I don’t really know
what I expected from Athens. It’s often described as
an intellectual town, a center of arts and
creativity. And that isn’t wrong, it’s just that it’s
so much more. We took the Greyhound from Atlanta,
basically because we wanted to try and travel by bus,
and the Greyhound is the archetype of that kind of
travel.
The trip from Atlanta isn’t much to write about. The road is surrounded by a vast amount of trees, making it virtually impossible to see anything beside adumbrations of the multitude of townships and apartment complexes lying along the route. Funny thing is, that you hardly even notice that you’ve reached Athens until the bus takes sharp left turn and stops at an anonymous building and the driver says “Athens, Georgia folks”.
The station is
empty, I’ve never seen anyone in there but the stout
southern gentleman behind the counter. But his
“How’re-y’all-doing”, instantly puts a smile on my
face. The rhythm of the southern accent - as far as I
know, the “Southern Drawl” - just makes you feel
welcome.
When you walk out the main entrance and hit Broad Street, just turn left and follow the road up the hill. It really has a small town feel to it, and the five minute walk to campus is a lovely little stroll (If you turn right and walk down hill, you’ll get to a lot of cheap motels).
After five minutes walking (if you turn left for the scenic route), you will get to an intersection with a small Starbucks on one corner. At this point you’ll wanna turn right and cross the street (or quickly get a cup of coffee in Starbucks, and bring it along). After crossing the street you’ll be staring directly at the University of Georgia Campus.
At this point (providing you have the good fortune of arriving on a remotely sunny day), I recommend that you sit down in the middle of the small park and just relax. It’s like stepping into a movie or maybe even a dream. The buildings are well kept, the architecture aspires to be classical in it’s greco-roman style. For me it brought connotations to how I’ve always imagined it must have felt sitting in Aristotle's Elysium, sipping whatever the heck they served, and just learning through debates. It has an innocence to it that I haven’t seen before - and the students have an unspoiled appearance, and an admiration of learning provided by the curiosity of youth, but also inspired by their surroundings.
We sat there for an hour or so until Eric picked us up - he no longer resides in the campus dormitories, but instead shares a flat a few miles from the Downtown/campus area in a lovely apartment complex called “The Athens Lodge”.
Living at Eric’s was excellent. He had two couches we could crash, and he had the kind of TV that wars are fought over (I myself have started lesser conflicts over the right to watch Soccer on a 20’ TV, so I suppose larger scale skirmishes are a definite possibility with this TV). He spent the entire two days with us, driving us to and from shops, restaurants and even took the time to give us a four hour tour of campus, on saturday.
In Addition to all this, he invited us to meet his friends, and I actually got half through my serving of chicken nugget without noticing that the others were saying grace. Luckily they have a sense of humor. Sunday Eric brought us along for the Easter sermon at The First Baptist Church of Watkinsville, which was an amazing experience. Coming from a Lutheran Protestant church, in which the basic premiss is Original sin, and all the joys you can get out of that [Insert Irony marker], a baptist sermon is very uplifting. It’s about the individual celebrating his faith and his love for Jesus. I’m not a Christian myself, but I find the baptists’ ways of celebrating their faith a bit more inviting than the “Ye are all profoundly screwed” of the Lutheran Church. I once got whacked on the back of the head by a senior citizen sitting behind, me for not saying the correct Grace in church (in her defense the grace I was saying was waaaaaay off). At this sermon people fell to their knees, stood up, yelled ‘Amen’ at will - whatever they felt appropriate, whaterver they needed to do to express their faith. For me, that’s a big plus.
After the sermon
we went back to Eric’s friends apartment along with
some more friends and family. We had a big lunch with
(a kind of) creamed corn, grilled chicken, macaroni
and cheese (should you ever find yourself within arms
reach, I suggest you try some of Megans homemade
Mac’n’cheese). It was a wonderful afternoon, a lot
like a traditional danish family gathering (almost
missed the ‘Akvavit’, but only almost). They were
kind enough to say grace before I got the food on my
plate, which saved me form embarrassing myself again,
so the afternoon passed without any bloopers from my
side.
Unfortunately, we are unable to get a rental car in Athens, and will be traveling back to Atlanta to spend the night. Tomorrow we'll pick up a car at the airport and head south for Mexican Gulf, and some seafood. I'm very excited about that, as food is my favorite dish :p
The trip from Atlanta isn’t much to write about. The road is surrounded by a vast amount of trees, making it virtually impossible to see anything beside adumbrations of the multitude of townships and apartment complexes lying along the route. Funny thing is, that you hardly even notice that you’ve reached Athens until the bus takes sharp left turn and stops at an anonymous building and the driver says “Athens, Georgia folks”.
When you walk out the main entrance and hit Broad Street, just turn left and follow the road up the hill. It really has a small town feel to it, and the five minute walk to campus is a lovely little stroll (If you turn right and walk down hill, you’ll get to a lot of cheap motels).
After five minutes walking (if you turn left for the scenic route), you will get to an intersection with a small Starbucks on one corner. At this point you’ll wanna turn right and cross the street (or quickly get a cup of coffee in Starbucks, and bring it along). After crossing the street you’ll be staring directly at the University of Georgia Campus.
At this point (providing you have the good fortune of arriving on a remotely sunny day), I recommend that you sit down in the middle of the small park and just relax. It’s like stepping into a movie or maybe even a dream. The buildings are well kept, the architecture aspires to be classical in it’s greco-roman style. For me it brought connotations to how I’ve always imagined it must have felt sitting in Aristotle's Elysium, sipping whatever the heck they served, and just learning through debates. It has an innocence to it that I haven’t seen before - and the students have an unspoiled appearance, and an admiration of learning provided by the curiosity of youth, but also inspired by their surroundings.
We sat there for an hour or so until Eric picked us up - he no longer resides in the campus dormitories, but instead shares a flat a few miles from the Downtown/campus area in a lovely apartment complex called “The Athens Lodge”.
Living at Eric’s was excellent. He had two couches we could crash, and he had the kind of TV that wars are fought over (I myself have started lesser conflicts over the right to watch Soccer on a 20’ TV, so I suppose larger scale skirmishes are a definite possibility with this TV). He spent the entire two days with us, driving us to and from shops, restaurants and even took the time to give us a four hour tour of campus, on saturday.
In Addition to all this, he invited us to meet his friends, and I actually got half through my serving of chicken nugget without noticing that the others were saying grace. Luckily they have a sense of humor. Sunday Eric brought us along for the Easter sermon at The First Baptist Church of Watkinsville, which was an amazing experience. Coming from a Lutheran Protestant church, in which the basic premiss is Original sin, and all the joys you can get out of that [Insert Irony marker], a baptist sermon is very uplifting. It’s about the individual celebrating his faith and his love for Jesus. I’m not a Christian myself, but I find the baptists’ ways of celebrating their faith a bit more inviting than the “Ye are all profoundly screwed” of the Lutheran Church. I once got whacked on the back of the head by a senior citizen sitting behind, me for not saying the correct Grace in church (in her defense the grace I was saying was waaaaaay off). At this sermon people fell to their knees, stood up, yelled ‘Amen’ at will - whatever they felt appropriate, whaterver they needed to do to express their faith. For me, that’s a big plus.
Unfortunately, we are unable to get a rental car in Athens, and will be traveling back to Atlanta to spend the night. Tomorrow we'll pick up a car at the airport and head south for Mexican Gulf, and some seafood. I'm very excited about that, as food is my favorite dish :p