Birmingham, AL

Ok... so the night of day 1 was pretty eventful!  We ventured out into the city... which well... it's a busy city during the day... but there is NO nightlife.  I repeat... NO night life!  We went to one bar called the Speak Easy... Hmm... there was definitely someone who was "easy" in there.  She put on a show with her interesting man... yeah... It was like a train wreck... you didn't want to watch it... ewee!

Plus, the bar smelled like smoke - since people still smoke in places around here.  Yuck!  We left after a little while and headed down the street to explore.  Again, there was NOTHING open.   We found a bar... there was no one in it... and it was smoke free!  SCORE!  We got beers and just hung out.  I got to know Sarah who is in the ELL/Sped Teacher group.  That's the great thing, we always have a chance to meet new people.

The walk home was HYSTERICAL!  As were walking... we see these big black bugs... Of course the first thing we think is cockroaches.  YUCK!  The thing is, these bugs were MASSIVE!  I mean the biggest we've ever seen.  They were rodent size.  Now we've had a bit to drink, so of course we made up a new word - CockDents - Cockroach size rodents.  We screamed and laughed most of the day home!

The next morning, we walked all around the city.  There were no cockdents in sight.  We did find a cool artsy section.  In there, they had a music area where it featured a statue of the Temptations.  It was beautiful.  There were metal music notes throughout the walkway and music of the Temptations coming from a speaker high above.  It just put you in a great mood.  Once I get the picture from Donna, I'll add it... yes.... we took pictures!

The rest of the city is truly a depressed area except for all of the financial buildings and court houses, most of the buildings were empty and for rent.  Now this made us think, if it's this way here, and they're supposed to be more "advanced" here, what would it be like in Mississippi?!?

Even more strange was there seemed like there was NO ONE in the city at all.  Our walk began at about 8 am... people have to goto work, yet we don't see any.  So weird!

Tuesday was filled with the Civil Rights Institute followed by the 16th Street Baptist Church and a tour of the park.  This was honestly a hard day.  This trip is not like the last one.  The Oregon Trail was a time filled with adventure and finding out new things.  This trip, well... it kinda messes with your head.  You have feelings brought up... that you may not want to have dealt with.  It's not a place that leaves you with a happy feeling, but it does open up your eyes to injustices that you may not have learned about.

This isn't a place where we truly go around posing for pictures everywhere, but we did do a nice group shot outside the museum!  Aren't we cute!  These are most of us from the last trip... Hurwell was shopping, so he isn't with us!

We ended the day with a debrief from hell!  Sometimes people can just go on and on.  We seriously thing there are people that just want to hear themselves speak and keep going on and on. We had just enough time to shower and change before heading out to the college section of town called 5 points!  The shuttle brought us into town for our adventure.  We originally thought... we could walk this... boy were we wrong!

 

Here’s our own version of the 5 points with our feet!  Yes... we had fun with it.  I embarked on an adventure of my own at the Sushi/Thai Restaurant.  Years ago, my friend Danielle tried to get me to eat Sushi, and I don’t think it was too successful.  But tonight, I was up for the challenge.  Who else can I say that they ate sushi for the first time in Alabama!  I was lucky to be with a bunch of experts who guided my way through the menu!  I tried it all and loved it!  I think I’m hooked! 

From there we walked around a bit before we settled in at the Fuego Saloon!  There were lots of comic relief throughout the walk!  We were seated in a trendy little area, all 8 of us!  They had to bring in more chairs, but it was great!  The conversations were amazing!  I was even able to check out a few of a friends' videos online.  It’s great to hear when people are passionate about something.  I loved just seeing his excitement when he talked about sword fighting!   

We waiting outside for a while to get our shuttle... so it was picture time!

The drive back to the hotel was just like the drives on the Oregon Trail.  I swear our drivers name was Steve!  We got back to the hotel so quickly!  

We all weren’t ready to call it a night, so everyone came back to our room.   Chris came by to share with us his songs, which if I do say for myself, were pretty damn good.  While we were downloading songs, I was able to share with him shots from Annie, so he could see my AMAZINGLY TALENTED students.  Still looking back at each of these photos, I am so proud of each and every one of them!  

When it came time to listen to his original songs, the best part was the way he introduced them.  It was just like MTvs  Storytellers.  He set up each song before we listened.  I liked watching him while we were listening.  He was getting lost in his own songs... pretty cool.  He’s truly an artist.

The night ended with us finally calling it quits.  We were EXHASUTED!