I sleep well. Going to bed was easy and waking up was hard. This may be one of the most comfortable mattresses I have ever been on, or I may have been that tired, or perhaps both. Either way I slept like a rock would sleep if a rock could sleep. I’m out of the room at 6:45 and walk out of the hotel shortly after that because they do not have free breakfast. Why do the more expensive hotels not allow you to do laundry nor to they give you anything to eat?
Instead I head to Panera for breakfast. I’m feeling like a space cadet today. It’s one of those days you sleep so deeply you never fully wake up. I scrape myself in and Panera delivers a reasonable breakfast for less than $10.
I sit in the Panera and work. I then come to realize that my current situation is that I’m sitting inside a Panera outside of Atlanta listening to Cyndi Lauper play in this establishment. Just let that sink in for a moment.
At least it’s a nice day out, if not a tad cooler.
I get to the office an hour later than yesterday because we have less to cover today. I eat more of the free food as I’m still tired & hungry when I get there. They have chocolate muffins which is just an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. The day kicks off shortly after and the excitement is palpable.
We are effectively done by 11, but we fart around and finally leave at 12. We get a recommendation for lunch, which is LanZhou ramen. The name is misleading.
This is a poorly named shop in that the word “ramen” does not really belong here as it pertains to the way it is used in society today. Technically there was soup and there was noodles, but this is not ramen in the current parlance of our times. The broth was fine and it seemed a decent place to eat, but this did not satisfy why I came here.
Following this I take my unwitting coworkers to Radio Roasters Coffee. We have some time to kill as we’ve all booked later flights due to their request for us to stay here until 4:00…on a Friday. Since I have the rental car I make them come with me for the ride to get lunch then coffee. My party, my rules. They don’t seem to mind.
Wow, how amazing is this place? Don’t let the sign on the outside of the shop fool you, it is more than just COFFEE. So the double espresso was perhaps one of the more perfect cups I have ever had and the pour over was damn fine as well. I did not have the pour over in the shop but took it with me but the sip I had plus the espresso was enough to make me walk out with a bag of beans, I wish this place were in NJ where I live though my wallet might not like it. Staff was ludicrously nice as well. Do it, go here!
After the coffee roaster, where I picked up another bag of beans to make my TSA experience more enjoyable, we make our way to the airport via the gas station then the rental car center. Again, this airport is massive and somewhat hard to navigate. Eventually we get in line and make it through the TSA.
We make our way to the furthest terminal so we can use one of the lounges that 1 of the guys is able to get us into, where we do some work and I teach 1 more of my students more of the tool and how to do our jobs better. I then proceed to essentially eat M&Ms for dinner.
I leave the lounge and make my way to the gate, where I sit by an outlet and read while my phone charges. The gate is for the Chicago plane that has already been canceled due to the snow there. I’ve gotten lucky with the weather in that a day later and my flight almost surely would have been delayed.
We board the plane and I finish The Killing Zone before we take off. Then a 20-25 year old girl sits next to me so I need to hide my phone while I watch Dolemite on the flight home, which is probably about the least appropriate movie to watch in public that you can find on Amazon Prime. Truly and possibly one of the worst movies ever made. So bad it is almost fantastic.
But it’s not. It’s horrendous.
Traveling Normandy 