So it was our second last day in Atlanta, and our last "full" day where we wouldn't be considering flying in the morning, and getting up early, and making sure everything is packed, and so on ...

We walked down to mid town, where the city looked much more like Melbourne CBD, and was fun and vibrant and "big" and loud.  There were giant coca-cola screens, big waterfalls that ran down step like structures next to tiny forests that made my think of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" because the sign post set in the centre of the gorgeous looking trees seemed so incongruous.

We went into the city library which was a lovely place.  It spanned four levels, and there was a basement we forgot to go down, so we don't know what was there.  Perhaps they kept a slave gang working at bellows?  Anway, there was an excellent arts / photography display on the ground level, and a second hand book display where you could select the books you want and put coins in a machine to the value of whatever you had bought.  The books ranged from fifty cents to three dollars, and it was a nice "trust" based purchase system.  Cool.

The weather was ... cold.  It's going to be so much colder in Alaska, and my body started shutting down a little as we walked around the city.  I was shivering and not feeling great by the time we got back to our part of town.  It also rained for the first time.  A solid spitting that reminded me of weather in south gippsland.  There was lots of fog around, and some of the tall buildings were lost in drifting clouds that turned them into spirit-touched mysterious entities.

We walked into a McDonalds, and it was very similar to an Australian (to be fair, I should reverse the who is similar to whom ... but you know what I mean), down to them offering Angus burgers.  I didn't notice anything different on the menu, other than they didn't have a McCafe, which suggest they either haven't had the health backlash we have, or it simply wasn't a big enough McDonalds to have been "converted".

In the evening we set off to the Georgia Tech University area, where our game was being hosted at the Russ Chandler Stadium.  It was almost unreal.  The opulence of the university buildings and the area was astonishing.  It was like we'd entered some kingship, where the lord had his residence, and the ground was incredibly well organised and wealthy.  We had bought our tickets online, and it was simple to simply line up and give our names and then walk in.

The Yellow Jackets (Geordia Tech) and the Eagles were playing.  This is the top college league, just before the national competition.

So ... baseball is an excellent sport for watching.  The series of nine innings are automatically separated with tiny breaks in between each, where for a minute the pitcher's have a quick practise and then the game goes on.  Each innings goes for five to twenty minutes, and it's tremendously exciting.  You can follow the plays easily, and some of the tactics and plans are clear to see.  We could observe some of the hand signals the teams made, and we were behind the batter with a big net up, which was there for a good reason, because my goodness they pitch and hit hard.  It's impossible to tell just how amazingly fast and powerful these people are unless you are there.  An edged ball thundered into the net in front of us, and many many balls went out of the stadium fouled.
It was also absolutely freezing, and we only stayed until the bottom of the fourth.  At that time, after a slow start, the home team were leading four to two.  I have to say, baseball is a really entertaining sport I could quite easily follow.

We waked home, and to celebrate our last full evening without thought for the following day I bought a half bottle of some strange cheap American bourbon.  It actually tasted fine, quite nice even.


Some pics from our day.