Atlanta!

Hey everyone! So, I am fully recovered from Atlanta after 2 days of lovely sleeping in without an alarm :) Now, let's see if I can get everything that happened into 1 post...

Background: I went as the only staff advisor on an Alternative Spring Break trip through IUPUI to Atlanta. There were 10 people including myself and the student advisor, Monica. All in all, it was a very interesting week but very good. The trip down may have been 14.5 of the longest hours of my life. We rented 2 mini vans through Enterprise and right outside Nashville one of the vans got a flat tire. We got it to a Firestone that was close to where we were (conveniently located by a mall...) and they said it would take max 1 1/2 hours to fix it. About an hour later Firestone called and told us that first of all they didn't have the right tire to fix our van and nobody in Nashville did either but also, the brakes on the van were bad and we should look for a hotel because they wouldn't be able to get it back to us until the next day. So, I called 1-800-RENTACAR and, long story short, spend over 2 hours on the phone getting us a replacement van. Being a Sunday, nobody was open but the airport so we had to drive teh 30 minutes to the airport (where Erik the manager was the biggest jerk on the face of the earth and cost us another 45 minutes due to his incompetence and arrogance), drive back to the mall to pick up the group, then drive the remaining 6 hours to Atlanta. To top it all off, about 30 minutes after we got out of Nashville, we got stuck in stop and go traffic for 45 minutes. I was seriously ready to cry/hit something/explode...whatever. But, we survived and made it to Atlanta about 11 pm.

The replacement "van" was a beautiful 2009 Durango that we liked a lot :)

Monday was our free day and everybody in the Durango decided to go downtown to the Coke factory and to see the Olympic sights. It was so much fun and I'm so glad we had the chance to do all of that!

Aleen, Joseph, Josie and I decided to try all 65 coke products offered in the Taste Room...and felt a little sick at the end!


Me with the 7-foot Coke polar bear

The Olympic Torch (from the car...stupid stop light)

The sign at the entrance to the Olympic Park


After we got a little fun out of our systems, we started working on Tuesday. The organization that we worked with is called Project Open Hand. They prepare and deliver meals to individuals in and around Atlanta (all the way to Savannah!) who are elderly, have a chronic illness, or for whatever reason are unable to prepare meals for themselves. In the 4 days that we worked, we delivered around 200 meals and prepared over 2300. They send out 5000+ meals every day! It is a really neat organization and it was fun to deliver the meals. We got to see a lot of different parts of Atlanta and we met some cool people. Most of the people on our routes weren't very chatty but there were a few that we talked to for quite awhile. We did have an interesting experience where one lady asked us not to come back because we were white. She told us that she was just acting the way she was raised and would prefer if somebody else would deliver her meals tomorrow. We kindly told her to have a good day and got back on the elevator to leave. It was a really different experience as far as the service goes working with Open Hand. I'm used to working on ASB's with the same people every day and doing something where you can see an immediate impact from the start of the day to the end of the day. I still enjoyed the work but I don't feel that it had as strong of an impact on me as some of my other trips have.

The assembly line used to prepare the meals

The machine used to seal the meals

The final product- hamburger patty (bun, fruit, and dessert were in a separated bag), sweet potato fries, and a vegetable medley.

One evening we had the chance to go to dinner at the Break Away headquarters. Break Away is the national organization for Alternative Breaks. Their entire office is dedicated to helping schools run effective, quality alternative break programs. You know, pretty much my dream job. I got the chance to talk with Jill, the director, and Sam for quite awhile and it was such a great networking opportunity! It was also a cool experience because there were 8 schools other than IUPUI there and we got to hear about all the great things that other schools are doing both in and outside of Atlanta. It is so inspiring to see that many people doing such great things and making an impact on a community that isn't even their own.

The big group picture with all of the schools (minus 2 that had to leave early)

On the last 2 days of work they had over-booked the kitchen, so we just delivered meals in the morning and had the afternoon free to do whatever. On Thursday all of us in the Durango decided to go check out Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain is basically a giant rock in the middle of nowhere that was made from volcanic activity. It sounds dumb, but it's awesome. We took a skyride up to the top and got to hike around on the top for over an hour. It was a perfect day for it-75 with a light breeze and sunny. I wish that we could have stayed up there longer, but the group had made plans to go to the Varsity for dinner.

Stone Mountain from the parking lot

The artwork on the side of Stone Mountain that was carved into it during the Civil War and is several hundred feet wide and tall.

The group before we headed down

All in all, it was a successful trip and a good first experience being the adult (even though one of the students was older than me...). I really enjoyed my time in Atlanta, it is a great city that held a lot of learning experiences for me. Thanks for sticking with me during this super long post!