Does that sound intriguing to you? Well, let me tell you some more then: Today has been a jam-packed day with a wide variety of activities, expected and unexpected. First thing in the morning I had to run to the gas station across the road, as I suddenly realized I had run out of deodorant. In the Atlanta heat, that is the last thing you want to do. After that, I made my way back to the hotel, met up with Tracie, and headed off to work. The office is just across the road from our hotel as well, so no real trek there.
I had a very nice meeting in the office with Louis, who is working in a similar position to mine, and got a whole list of fresh ideas that I can take home to Europe. I always find it very refreshing to meet people like Louis. Come lunchtime, Ron came by and grabbed me and asked me to pick up my stuff ‘cause we’re going out…you’ll see!’
Mike, our manager here in the US was going to take us out on an outing for the day, so off we went to midtown Atlanta to a very nice seafood restaurant called ‘Atlanta Seafood Market’ where we had lunch. I am not usually a fish fan, but I had an amazing Hong Kong style Chilean Seabass with sticky rice on a bed of spinach, and a Greek salad to break it off a little bit. The fish literally melted in my mouth!
After lunch, Mike took us to the World of Coca-Cola experience, one of the main tourist attractions here in Atlanta. I have been there once before, but it was good fun! They have really neat video presentations there, vintage Coca-Cola marketing stuff like signs and cars and pop art, a new 4D cinema (you know, the ones with shaky chairs, air blowing, water sprinkling and so on), and also a tasting area where you get to taste Coca-Cola products from every continent on the planet. Once we’d walked through the whole exhibition, we went bananas in the gift shop, and I bought a few (hopefully) nice gifts for Shaena and Ethan. When we were done at Coca-Cola, the working day was suddenly over and Mike drove us back to our hotel. What a straining day, eh!
Tracie wanted to buy her son a new Nintendo game, so I suggested that we could go to Fry’s, an electronics supermarket that is highly recommended. Said and done, we got a taxi, headed over there, and shopped around for a while, nothing spectacular. It was when we left the store and was trying to figure out how to get home it happened; the run-in with the law that would change our appreciation for law enforcement officers for all time to come:
Tracie approached this police officer and said that she was from the UK and wanted a picture with him. Not only did he agree to this, but he also asked if we wanted him to pull up his police car as well! He drove up in this massive, really cool truck, shook our hands and introduced himself as Seargent Long. He was a shift commander in the Gwinnett County Police Department. He then said ‘Sure, how would you like to do this? And by the way, you can only take a picture if you add me to your Facebook and I can upload the pictures of you on my Facebook.’ – We did not expect that! We snapped a few photos (to follow) and Sgt. Long then told us about his job, his squad, Mexican drug cartels in the area, showed us what all the other police officers in the area were up to in real-time on his laptop. Sgt. Long then invited the both of us to dinner, gave us his business card and cell phone number, and said that ‘he was very happy to meet people from other countries and even though they often had a rough job as police officers, the times he was not so busy he felt like a host that wanted to welcome people like us into his home.’
What a very, very nice person he was! It did not end there though; Tracie and I wandered off to try to find that taxi, and Sgt. Long then drove up and asked if he could help us. He phoned one of his taxi driver buddies that came and picked us up. He ended with ‘It sounds like a cliché, but I am here to serve!’
Sgt. Long is our new best friend!
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