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Published: January 10th 2008
Birmingham
BirminghamSo arrived into Birmingham station tired and bedraggled and from the train coming in it looked like a washed up former industrial city.I headed out of the station to meet my friend and host Crystal and she was no were in site and its at this time i heard some say are you Mike and thats when i spotted Patrick.
Patrick is a friend of Crystals and had been sent by Crystal to meet me as she was running late and eventually Crystal turned up, better late then never....lol. I dumped my stuff in Crystals boot and it was still full of stuff from her road trip upto NYC for NYE's. I went back into the Amtrak station and booked my ticket down to New Orleans for the 10th Jan, as i did not want to book it on the day and incur extra costs like the DC to Birmingham leg of my trip and i booked it without a charge phew😊.
Crystal then took me and Patrick for lunch and Patrick followed in his car, we went to a Mexican place and had tortillas and a bean burrito and unlimited refills, the waitress kept filling my cup back
Birmingham
Birmingham up before i could blink...lol.
When we finished up Patrick left has it had a college class to get to and i went with Crystal and we went to her house and we went pass the main drag called the 5 stars and its pagan fountain and we got to Crystals house and i met her dog Jasmine and Cat called bear and i checked my emails etc and then we took a drive to Sloss Iron Ore works, Birmingham was built on the iron industry and this industry floundered at the start of the 1970's, Crystal said it was full of ghosts, but i did not notice anything out of the ordinary. Crystal got me to climb this tower that your not suppose to, tut tut, but the were good views from the top and we just milled round and climbed up stuff. The history of the plant is of low paid black and Irish workers and they also had to share cramped conditions in company provided housing and also some foundries used convict workers and one such work was murdered by being pushed into a boiling vat of water and a foreman at the Sloss plant was
Birmingham
Birmingham pushed from a high platform at the plant.
We then went to Vulcan park and saw the massive statue of an Iron Ore work that looks over Birmingham and is the largest cast Iron statue in the world and we also snook into the museum there as its normally $8 to get in and thats harsh amount as it took like 2 minutes to look around it.
Crystal then had to get to college and i waited while she was in class and Patrick picked me up and took me to a bar called the garage and we chatted for a little while and drank long island ice tea's and then Crystal called and she wanted to meet for Dinner.
Patrick dropped me off and Crystal got me dinner at the college/university canteen and i had a veggie burger and fries and a diet coke. I met Jason one of Crystals friend Jason and then shortly afterwards he left.
Then we headed to an out of town retail park and met up with Crystals friends and another CS hosts and two French Canadian CSer's and we had a few games of bowling and shared a few
Birmingham
Birmingham pitchers of beer and it was a good night.
Patrick then took me to my hosts apartment and my host is a guy called Terry who is from Jordan and is living and studying here in the States and his girlfriend Jessica was here and me, Patrick,Terry and Jess chatted for while and this included discussing my trip and then after a while Patrick went and everyone headed off to their bed for some shut eye and this time my bed was the couch.
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