the great american road trip pt. 1

My friend, Ester, is here to visit. Native Dutchie, English teacher, world traveler, and first time visit-er to the US of A. It was a bit of a last minute trip, but we managed to pull everything together and as a last fling (before I start working) we'll be hitting the road and touring the best of the South which means that for the next month I'm going to fatten her up and teach her about democracy. Yee haw, y'all.

Our big adventure began today with a trip down to Stone Mountain Park to visit a Georgia staple. It just seemed wrong to not start with Confederate generals carved into the side of a giant piece of granite. Taking the tram up the mountain, we stood at the top and admired the Atlanta skyline and the other cities whose names I took a wild (but semi-educated) guess at. After a few photos we hiked down the mountain side, then around the base of the mountain to get back to the main park. We sat for a while on the lawn until the heat became unbearable then made our way to the car. With no real plan in mind and a pretty solid part of the afternoon left to kill, I turned trusty Julius (my 2007 Jeep Liberty) toward downtown Atlanta thinking that we could take a CNN Center tour or something along those lines. But, what we found was so, so much better. Apparently, every Wednesday night V103 and another radio station host "Wednesday Wind Down", a free concert in Centennial Park that features local artists. When we arrived around the park we couldn't really tell what was going on and opted to take a spin on Atlanta's new observatory ferris wheel. Looking down on the scene we could see a huge crowd gathering below and decided it was definitely worth our time to check out. After getting off the wheel, we crossed over to inspect the scene and found that we were if not the only, then two of the very few white people in the crowd. It. Was. Amazing. We were treated to soul music and jazz, a brief appearance by the soul train, the Harlem Shakers dance team, duets by men with reverberating voices and women who effortlessly belt out notes that I can only dream of hitting. And while it was hard to tear your eyes from the stage, the crowd was filled with people swaying and stepping to the rhythm. It was hard to know which one to watch. We also had the great fortune to sit right behind Niecey,

new friends are the best friends

our new friend, who took it upon herself to take care of us, sharing her umbrella to block the late afternoon sun - which had us sweating like a couple of sinners in church - and offering us her snacks as the night wore on. We parted ways at the end of the evening, but not before taking a handful of photos and becoming Facebook friends. It was quite the successful start to our grand adventure.

We'll be traveling a fair amount in the next few weeks, so I don't know how much I'll be able to post about. But I'll try to catch up every now and then. Stay tuned!

C.

still alive with a mediocre excuse

Somehow the summer slipped away from me. I had all of these really wonderful intentions of finishing up my overseas adventure with some really meaningful point about broadened horizons and new friendships coupled with a collage of my adventures in England and Scotland. And then I didn't get to it, and didn't get to it, and now it's July. Whoops. Guess those stories will be just for me. Fun facts about Caitlin - I really only get any kind of semblance of work done when I have multiple things on my plate. Which is a garbage excuse for not blogging but whaddaya gonna do?
Major points from the summer to get you up to speed:
1. I made it back to the States 
Safe, sound, and exhausted.
2. I graduated. 

oh yeah, we're totally ready for the real world
....we hope? 

That's right, you are reading the musings of the proud owner of an Auburn mini-diploma that certifies completion of my Bachelors of Science in English, Language Education. I have a regular sized diploma too, but it's not as cool as the one that I can fit in my wallet. So if anyone ever wants to contest whether or not I graduated magna cum laude - whabam: mini-diploma.
It was a quick four years, but some of the best.

when in doubt of what to do next,
go on a cruise to the bahamas

3. I'm living the post grad dream
Moved back in with my 'rents. Searching for a job, cruise to the Bahamas, a bachelorette party with the exact same itinerary as my senior prom, three weddings, panic over lack of job, Atlanta adventures with old friends, napflix binges, and more naps. This is the first summer that I've been totally jobless since before high school. Exhausted, burnt out Caitlin thought that it would be an excellent idea to take some time off to find a job and have some time to do nothing. Two and a half months of living at home Caitlin now realizes that was a bad idea. Refer to paragraph one about not getting anything done... well, that's not entirely true. It has been nice to have the time to catch up with old friends, explore Atlanta, stay up late and sleep all day. But in between those days of activity, there are quite a few that start off like so:
9:00 - wake up to sun streaming through the windows - "nope, I have nothing to get out of bed for" - turn on episode of Scrubs, go back to sleep.
11:00 - "hungry, but if I go downstairs then I'll have to figure out how to pass the rest of the day. guess I won't"
Right now my summer accomplishments include: all nine seasons of Scrubs, twice (to be fair, I fall asleep to a lot of them which means that I only hear the first 10 minutes or so...); four seasons of Parks and Recreation, a decent amount of How I Met Your Mother, and the first four episodes of Game of Thrones. But so that you don't think I'm a completely mush-brained piece of scum, I've also read the first three Game of Thrones books, two John Green novels, part of Blue Like Jazz, and right now I'm working on The Hound of Baskerville (which is a really good read for anyone who is looking for a mystery).
Needless to say, unemployment got old, fast. And, as I'm sure you can guess, during my job-searching phase I was a complete delight to myself and my family and not at all a dejected, stress-ball, monster human.
Until...

4. I'm moving!
At the end of August I'll be cramming everything I own into a 50 lb suitcase and heading south of the border. After endless hours combing through the "want" ads and a skype interview that cut out every couple minutes, I accepted a middle and high school English teacher position at the Christian American School of Guatemala. Which means, LET THE ADVENTURES BEGIN....AGAIN.

I think you're all caught up. I'll try to keep the preparations for my ten month (maybe longer, we'll see how it goes. but that's the length of my contract for now) stint in Central America. And will make an effort to document the ridiculous, wonderful, mess that will be my first year of teaching.
In the meantime, next week I'm headed out on a grand tour of the USA (well, the southern parts) which is promising some excellent mishaps and misadventures.

Thanks for keepin' up with me!
C.