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and last updated July 25th.,1999.
WELCOME TO MY DAY..
IT IS NICE TO HAVE YOU SHARE IT WITH ME...
Well, folks, my last day in Atlanta, and time to do the touristy things!
My friend, Dave Wilson III took me to The Underground at Fivepoints last year, which was when I determined to come back to this part of Georgia!
Since MARTA dominates this part of the city, it certainly made sense to take what would have been ugly subterranean walkways and waste space and transform the Undergound into a decidedly colourful market mall!!
And since it is just as close, in the other direction along Peachtree Street as is the Peachtree Centre, and since today was a bit cooler (only mid 80s) and since my feet are beginning to heal a little, I decided to venture out..
It might not show here, but each of these stalls is set up on the back of a magnificently restored antique truck..and other antique vehicles are scattered about. There is even a whole ship down here, we are told...and alligators!!
I bought some "invisible jewellery" that should go well in our shop, and some hair ornaments for daughter and granddaughters, and a bottle of my favourite Joop perfume, and strolled back to make myself a cup of tea and download my photos, past parks and gardens and fountains and the Flatiron Building, having successfully RESISTED the glorious fudgy, nutty, chocolately smells that permeate the place...because I want to wear a bathing suit next week and the hotel has.. AAgh!..full-length mirrors!
The two-bedroom suite was luxurious, of course, but the new apartment suits me very nicely with a big
bathroom/dressing area section, such a change from my tiny ensuite at home, and I scored DOUBLE the number of coathangers since my clothes were transported on the ones from the first room!
Not as well set up kitchen-bench--wise as the newer Residence Inns, where space is less of a problem, but hey, who wants to COOK SERIOUSLY with all those food places just downstairs and along the street?
What sets this market-space apart from other covered market malls is the nature of its stalls...
Along each side, raised along a sidewalk, the shops and eating places seem everyday enough. You can watch fudge being cooked, apples twirled in caramel, and candles being made to your own design!
You can buy gold and precious stones, artwork and crafts..or have your portrait painted!
But it is down the centre that this market is unique...
None of the "bring your own trestle tables" routine for THESE stallholders!
Helen, the Reception Manager here was true to her word: she DID find me a unit that would suit me..
***
Interesting that this historic building is right opposite another of some notoriety, for the Chinese restaurant, whose windows are covered with a standard Downtown interior-decorator fabric, the ubiquitous brown-paper , used to be the Winecoff Hotel, whose 15 stories of stucco-covered brick was the scene, in 1946, of America's worst hotel fire, when 119 people lost their lives despite a desperate fight by fire units from Atlanta and surrounding towns. Volunteers fought the blaze frantically for two and a half hours in the chill of December 7th, saving 161 people, but watching in despair as hotel guests leaped to their deaths on the sidewalks and in the surrounding alleys, since the firemen's ladders reached only 8 stories, and their nets would stand falls of only 70 feet..
The tragedy was the more profound because a large group of the most promising students in Georgia were being billetted in the hotel for a YMCA convention; 30 were lost!
The historic marker advises us that the Winecoff Hotel had neither sprinklers, firedoors nor fire escapes, but that legislation was immediately enacted, all over the country, to prevent another, similar tragedy...
My current home, the Downtown Residence Inn, is a High Rise Conversion Hotel,and seemingly permanently under construction. The scaffolding outside the windows is a bit disconcerting at first, but the hanging nets sway in the breeze and give an illusion of extra coolness!
And the News-stands never change, either...nor the street stalls!
If they aren't selling FOOD, the stalls sell T-Shirts, sunglasses and bags of all kinds...purses, handbags, backpacks..one cannot imagine that so many bags can be needed in one city!
At weekends, the city highrises and the grazing-centres empty into the maw of MARTA, and buses bring in replacement human fodder, excited human teens for the nearby Hard Rock CafePlanet Hollywood, and families and tour groups come in by Marta and by car, to stroll and eat and look..
There are lots of jazz clubs nearby, as well, and one can hear some pretty groovy jazz, skillfully played, if one opens a window in the wee small hours...
On the other hand, I phoned the hotel in Biloxi today, and they sound VERY nice, and VERY efficient and VERY hospitable, and said there would be NO PROBLEM having a 'frig for my room, as long as I was happy to pay an extra $7 a day, and was there anything else I would like?
And Mississippi host, John, in England for a week for the big Air Show there, and so excited about showing me his state and his way of life,is due back in Mississippi tomorrow, the same day I fly there...
But after that, he may be whisked away to Oregon, all his enthusiastic planning undone....
As Jean, his twin sister, messaged me, their mother, hospitalized in Portland, Oregon, for surgery to relieve a bowel obstruction, came through her surgery successfully, though the next few days will be critical, and even though Jean is an R.N., she will need help in caring for their mother, who will be released after only 3 to 5 days , her Medical insurance cover not entitling her to a longer stay....
Hmmmm...
It just happens that I have some relevent experience in this field, having seen a father and a husband through that kind of surgery...and its aftermath!
And perhaps I can help...
Perhaps that's why I am here?
Perhaps Portland Oregon is as good a place to get the feel of the USA as anywhere else more on the beaten tourist track...
Well, after some of the trouble I have had in Georgia doing simple things like trying to send suitcases home,
( I used up a small forest trying to fill in the forms to the desk-clerk's satisfaction,and, even then, she assures me the suitcase will NOT reach home because some of the clothing in it has been WORN!!?), the How can we HELP you?" approach is music to my ears...
I am starting to LIKE the Gulf Of Mexico area already!!
NEXT BULLETIN FROM BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI !!!
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©Robin Knight, 1999.
