Stupid Hurts

Walking out of the train station I was a just little pissed. I had just found out there would be a 30 some odd minute delay until they would be unloading luggage from the train. Which meant I would have to wait to get my bicycle back. This is why when I travel, I normally never check anything.

I was calling Bobby to change our initial meeting plans when I passed a girl who sounding frustrated as she talked and waved at her cell phone in a language I didn’t catch on my first pass as I walked towards the corner. On my way back I over heard her conversation now with a taxi driver, and found out she and a friend were headed to the youth hostel. Assuming she was a backpacker from Europe and remember how well everyone took care of me when I was over there. I stopped and asked if she needed helped.

It turned out she did. They didn’t know where the youth hostel was, and the taxi driver was attempting to charge them $20 dollars for a half mile rile. Since my plans for the evening were pretty much only meeting up with Bobby who is also a backpacker and going to a bar to complain about women for, I figured we should try and help them out.
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We took the girls to their first Wendy’s restaurant for milkshakes and talking about their trip so far before delivering them to the youth hostel. Turns out they just recently gotten out of school in Amsterdam, Holland, and they are taking a train/bus trip all the way around the Untied States. Their pictures can be found here. The next morning I went with both girls to the Martin Luther King jr. memorial before they caught their next train to Savannah, Georgia.
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After I said goodbye to my mom I met up with Marcus who was headed to South Carolina for a swing dance workshop and we hit the road for Atlanta. I have been looking forward to making this move for some time and was really excited about the entire prospect. My uncle originally wanted me to wait till Tuesday before I headed out to Atlanta, but instead I decided to ride out early and spend the weekend couch surfing with several people.

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The plan has worked out pretty well so far. Friday night Marcus, Ben the couch surfer I was staying with, and I went to the A3C independent hip hop festival. I got to see Del the Funky Homo-sapien as well as the Juice Crew.
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Plus this as the first time I was ever at a place you could get a hair cut, your belly button pierced, and new shoes while drinking. The culture and environment was like so completely different than what I used to. It was a lot to take in at once, but I ended up having an awesome time.
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The next morning was an early start. After Marcus left town, Ben and I got our agenda sorted for the day. It started with a little cycling around and site seeing before heading over to Freedom park to take part in International Pillow Fight day. I think it was pretty funny to see random people go walking or cycling down the street carrying pillows in the middle of the day. We got there to find a big circle of people hanging out in the park with pillows and cushions just waiting. Someone pointed out there were more cameras there than people. I could only assume this would be on lots of blogs the next day.
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Needless to say I had a blast.

I left from there to put in to some volunteer time at Sopo and fix a couple of bikes before heading off to dinner.
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