We’re in Atlanta, and I’m intimidated.

The hotel is really, really hip. At least 40 stories, glass elevators, glass everywhere in fact, and the people match. Jeremy and I walked in wearing our comfy-but-not-chic travel clothes, hiking backpack, and brown lambskin bag-purse (worn with black cotton pants. Oh, so not coordinated). The first words out of my mouth were, “Jeremy, I don’t have the clothes for this place.” Jeremy knows that this perception does not work out well for us. He’s on his guard.

We were escorted to our hotel by a homeless man who pegged us as tourists the very second we walked out of the subway system (the MARTA). He led us down a side alley. I don’t know what Jeremy was thinking; all I could do was hold back and keep my ears open for trouble. When I reprimanded him, Jeremy said that of course he would have protected me if anything happened. But he led me down an alley in the company of a perhaps-not-too-sober derelict. (!) Once we emerged from the alley alive, I started thinking about how I could offer the man a tip without offending him. I needn’t have worried. He begged.

This, folks, is precisely why I live in the country. It’s why I give to charities instead of trolling the streets of Claremont looking for people to throw my earnings at. I don’t have a problem associating with people below my socio-economic class. But when someone begs of me, how am I to know whether I am helping or hurting him by handing over money? His words were slurred: he could be drunk, or he could have a disability. He asked for money: he could use it for the homeless shelter, or he could go buy booze. And if he’s going to buy booze, why should I do it for him, when I could use that money to buy myself a sundae??

On the plus side, people here are friendly. It’s one reason why we fell in with our friend outside the MARTA - three people had already spontaneously offered us help, and they all sound odd to us with the “southern accents” (although of course, we’re the ones with the accents here!), so Jeremy didn’t want to be rude and squish what could have been just plain Atlanta niceness. Time also seems to move more slowly here. There was a palpable difference between the aura of the MARTA and that of the MBTA. People seemed much more relaxed. Another interesting contrast: the subway cars were well-cared-for. It seems like in Boston they buy new stuff and then don’t do anything to keep it up, so it just falls to pieces. The cars here were old (I would guess 80s-vintage decorating), but they were very clean and neat, and just looked tended. There was also a man on the first subway stop who was acting as a sort of usher, making sure people were on the right train, using the train map to show them how far to go, bantering with the passengers, and even at one point using hand gestures to communicate with a young deaf man.

People here are really, really nice.

On the other hand, we got here at 11PM, the hotel is in the inner city, and we’re not city mice. I just might like the South. I sure don’t like the city.

We’ll be meeting Yu Jin and Rebecca at the airport tomorrow afternoon: I hope we can get our bearings before then! We’ll definitely be suggesting that we all get ourselves inside where it’s safe very early tomorrow - Jeremy said before sunset, but I don’t think we’ll have to turn in that early. Stay tuned.