Look at that on the car there in front of me.. it’s Washington license plates! 🙂  Funny how little things like that make me feel like I have some sort of connection with that person.

So I thought I’d blog my drive to work this morning.. it’s the last time I’ll be driving out to the VA and a time will come when I don’t remeber this city as clearly… However, it was a gloomy, rainy, overcast morning and I was taking pictures on my cell phone while moving – so I don’t know how much of this will really be nostalgic later, since I can’t recognize a whole lot. 🙂

So this first picture is on Kingshighway heading north, right by Tower Grove Park.

This one is the World’s Fair Donut Shop that I pass every morning (on Vandeventer).  It’s hard to see because of the rain on the windshield.  I’ve never actually been here… I wonder if they have maple bars (probably not).

Here is the construction at Vandeventer and Chouteau that has inconveniently removed a nice route home from school by removing a bridge.  Hopefully they will be putting it back up.
 

This is at Vandeventer and Forest Park.  Not very interesting. Oh well.
 

And here’s Vandeventer and Lindell – if you turn right here you’ll get to AJ’s school.
 

This is the parking lot for the VA.  Kind of empty … guess I’m early. 🙂
 

This is the semi-scary alley I have to walk in to get between the parking lot and the VA hospital.  I think homeless people might take refuge there sometimes, but I’ve never seen anyone there.  Today was my last day at the VA so I don’t have to walk there anymore.
 

And here’s the front entrance to the VA.  The big black building with the air conditioner is the smoking shelter.  But it doesn’t do a very good job of sheltering the smoke so my lungs get just a little bit blacker each time I walk past it.
 

This is the Curves that I go to in St Louis.

This is a sign posted in the cafeteria at the VA Hospital where I’m currently working.  Better not steal those napkins and ketchup packets!!!

AJ and I had lunch at Applebee’s today – I had the grilled steak ceasar salad and AJ had the grilled chicken ceasar salad.  Afterwards we went to one of those car washing places and washed the Jeep – and I think we’re going to try and do my truck next weekend because it really could use a wash.  I only have 1 week left at the VA now, which is a little sad since I’ve actually been enjoying myself there.  I head over to SLU hospital next for 4 weeks.  Hopefully I’ll be lucky there and get a good team of residents and a nice attending.

Here is a photo in the front of the CNN Center building.  This is where we took the Studio Tour and hung out for a while (while waiting for the tour to begin).  There was a huge (HUGE) volleyball tournament of some kind going on this weekend and it was being held at the Georgia World Congress Center, which is right next to the CNN Center and is a HUGE, HUGE building.  Anyway, AJ read that there were something like 21,000 participants (which would equal out to approximately 1500 different teams) from around the US – so the CNN Center was overrun with small-shorted girls all weekend.  And we saw one girl yesterday who was about 6’5" tall – her legs alone were almost as tall as my whole body.  It was crazy.

After our CNN Studio Tour, we hopped in the truck and decided to drive around and see what there was to see.  We ended up driving for probably a couple of hours and we saw a lot of the surrounding areas.  It was really fun and relaxing.  We stopped for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and brought home a piece of Lemon Raspberry cheesecake which we ate while watching "Spanglish".  All in all a fun day and a nice way to end our trip here in Atlanta.  Tomorrow we leave to drive back to St. Louis – back to weird fluctuating weather – back to school.

After 3 months back at school (since Christmas break) it was definitely time for a mini-vacation, especially since I got an extra day off this weekend for Easter.  AJ and I looked at a map to figure out where we could drive in a day.  Unlike in Seattle, where there are limited options, St. Louis has many.  Last year we drove to New Orleans for q weekend trip, this year we chose Atlanta.  We got a great deal on a hotel (a Marriott for $67/night!) and so we headed out yesterday.

Today, we explored some of downtown: Underground Atlanta which is basically a shopping mall, but it’s under the roads.  It seemed like it could be cool, but it was so packed with people that it just wasn’t as much fun as we would have liked.  We has lunch there in the food court, then headed over to the World of Coca-Cola.  See, Coke has it’s roots in Atlanta so they built a nice tourist-trap museum with lots of historical tidbits, paraphenilia, videos, and ads from around the world.  They had a old-fashioned soda fountain where a soda jerk demonstrated how a Coca-Cola was prepared back in the old days.  There was also a tasting room with coke products sold around the world.  Sadly, there were no Australian products (so no Lift 🙁 ), but there was a really disgusting one from Italy called "Beverly".  I heard from a tour guide guy that it is flavored with quinine, which is a plant used to make malaria medication.  It definitely had a medicinal taste. Ugh.  After we were done at the World of Coca-Cola (complete with a T-shirt purchase) we walked over to the CNN Center, which by the way has a much awesomer food court and is where we will be heading for lunch tomorrow I think.  Anyway, we plan to take the studio tour on Saturday, so we just took a quick look around the building then crossed the street to the Centennial Olympic Park.  There was a fountain show in the middle of the park, which really is the only thing there.  I played in the water a bit to cool off 9it was 82 degrees!).  Then we came back to the hotel for a swim and a soak in the hot tub before heading to the Outback for dinner.  Then we finished off the evening with room service dessert (creme brulee and Haagen Daas Chocolate ice cream) and "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason".

Tomorrow is the CNN Studio Tour and who knows what else… we’ll have to see what strikes our fancy.

Because I do this:

I get grades like this!

Here I am enjoying my first sustenance at the new Starbucks in town!  This one is only a mile from my house and it has been "under construction" for a loooooooong time – I thought it would never get finished.  But then, there we are driving along yesterday evening and I glance over and there are lights on!  and people moving about! Amazing, we quickly pulled into the parking lot, then had a leisurely sit while we enjoyed our iced tea, vanilla steamer (no whip, extra foam) and marble loaf.  Ahh… this is what I’ve been waiting for, because unlike in Seattle when you can find a Starbucks nearby anytime you need one (and plenty of times when you don’t) they are much harder to come by out here.  Now I will be able to fritter my money away so much more easily. 🙂