Exploring Charlotte

Today was our free day and we took the opportunity to prepare for our coming week, wander around downtown, and visit Concord Mills mall. It was a beautiful, sunny, albeit chilly day. We left the Holiday Inn at 10am and drove to Lion market for this week’s lunches and snacks. We bought materials for sandwiches and a variety of treats. Since we didn’t have refrigerators in our rooms, we tended to avoid perishable foods. That is, with the exception of my turkey and provolone cheese. But that was more or less because I neglected to acknowledge the whole refrigerator thing since it gets below freezing at night. Hopefully it’ll turn out well, something to look forward to in the morning – but I digress. Afterwards, we took the scenic route to Charlotte’s main street. Our first stop was a quaint coffee shop on the corner of West Martin Luther King Blvd and Tryson Rd which happened to be an annex to the visitor center. After receiving advice from the customer service desk we all agreed to meander until we were either exhausted or frozen. We ended up taking a bunch of pictures near neat pieces of art. Displayed below are all six of us under the L’oisau De Feu Sur L’arche. With my master observation skills and juvenile education of French I’ve taken the initiative to translate that: the bird of fire on the arch.


From left to right: Albert Lu, Julie Bowman, Claire Hoffman, Maria Miller, and Juan Pagan.

At noon, we dropped by Merts to have lunch. It was highly recommended by the woman at the visitor center and rightfully so. Merts is a small restaurant akin to potbellies, but they served southern styled hot meals. Then at 1pm, we drove to the highly anticipated Concord Mills mall. We stayed as a group and shopped together for awhile and later on watched avatar. The movie was expected to be unbelievable and it did not disappoint. The story made sense, the visuals were astounding, and the only beef I had with it was the dialog at some points. But overall, we all enjoyed it and had a small discussion about it over dinner in the mall. We got back to the Holiday Inn around 8pm and finished the night together by making sandwiches and discussing this week’s activities. This is the first and last post you’ll hear from me, so I hope you’ve enjoyed my summary of Monday, January 04, 2010. Tomorrow’s blog will be piloted by Julie, treat her well!

Albert Lu
Great and Awesome, Finance & Operations Management major