Uptown

So this past weekend we visited my daughter and walked two miles to the Greek Festival going on nearby. You can read about that here.

After we left the festival she wanted us to see where she worked. Each morning she will get on the monorail and ride into town to work, but since she is only a little over a mile from uptown where she works, we decided to walk. We wanted to get our exercise in and walk off some of those sweets we ate at the festival. 

As we were walking we could see the Bank of America Stadium in the distance. Home of the Carolina Panthers.

It was a nice little walk into the city. The streets were busy and I saw lots of street vendors, beggars and homeless people sleeping on benches. I live in a town full of homeless people, but most are just drug addicts looking for a fix. Here in the big city, they looked really homeless sleeping on benches without shoes. Everything they owned was stuffed in trash bags and used as pillows. It broke my heart. 

I told my husband that we only live 20 minutes from uptown and in 49 years, I have never been on the streets of Charlotte. I have never seen inside any of the buildings. My daughter was exited to show us where she worked so she took us on a tour inside some of the buildings and I was in awe. 

They were as beautiful on the inside as they were on the outside. I would love to show you her offices but for her protection, I’d rather not. They were very modern and looked like something out of a magazine. I could only dream of having an office like hers. 

These little scooters were everywhere. 

You download an app on your phone, scan the code on the scooter and it will charge you 2.00 to ride until you put the kickstand down. Then it’s free game for someone else to grab. So if you take it to a store and park it, most likely it will not be there when you come out. No worries though, you can just use the app to locate the nearest one. They were just all “Grab and go”. I though it was just the funniest thing. 

People were riding them everywhere and they were pretty fast. I could not get Nick to try one. (For the record, neither did I).

I gave this man some money while he played a tune on his guitar. 

As I walked away, I looked back and saw him lay the guitar down, but the playing kept going. Why? Because he wasn’t even playing! It was all on a music box. I was tricked! But he was obviously getting rich from it. I had sucker wrote all over me. 

We spent almost all afternoon exploring uptown and all it had to offer but I still would not want to live there and I still fear for my daughters safety every single day.

Before we headed home, we stopped at the ice cream shop for a snack. 

I order a scoop of blueberry cheese cake and Nick had the Pistachio flavor. My daughter walked next door for a smoothie instead. 

It was a fun day and I walked 10.23 miles and 21,615 steps that day according to my fitbit.