The farthest south I’ve ever been and yet it feels like a taste of home.

Sleep evades me as I peek through tinted window of our snazzy purplish-pink tour bus at the skyscrapers that line the sky. The rows of cars, the buildings stories tall, the noise of traffic all remind me of Boston. We have arrived. We are in Atlanta, Georgia and our first stop is the volunteer shelter where we will be housed for the next 5 days. We will not be staying in a hotel, nor a hostel, nor a camp but rather a relief shelter. This shelter is the same shelter that provided aid to those in desperate need during Hurricane Katrina and its ambiance gives us a sense of history, of humanity, compassion and empathy. After introductions and ground rules, we take our first steps around the back roads and neighborhoods of Atlanta. We visited a spunky 88-year-old Miss Thompson who introduced us to Atlanta’s sassy side, we visited the birthplace and tomb of the honorable Martin Luther King Jr., the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Freedom Park, Freedom Hall and experienced the various robust characters of surrounding neighborhoods.

After a delicious yet healthy meal of pasta, salad and unspeakably scrumptious broccoli cheese casserole for dinner, a couple friends and I headed outside to explore downtown Atlanta. After 2 hours of walking through a maze of tall buildings, blossoming trees and continuous cars we finally reached our destination: downtown Atlanta. Here, we found booming Mama Mia music blasting from a local club, a row of Jamie Foxx pictures staring at us in passing, learned that “gyro” can be pronounced “year-o” or “hero” or “gye-ro”, and belly laughed with a mix of old and new friends among many other things. Just from this one night I made unforgettable memories with a wonderful group of friends in uncharted land. From this small taste of Atlanta I can already tell this experience will be an adventure.

~Liz Ko