What a busy weekend it was! Last week, we had Thursday and Friday off to celebrate the Fourth. We all went to different events in Atlanta to celebrate — some of us went to Ponce City Market and others went to Centennial Olympic Park, all to watch some incredible fireworks displays. If you go to Centennial to watch fireworks next year, make sure to arrive early! On Sunday, Dr. Asensio took us to an Atlanta United soccer game. It was a close finish, but in the end, the game was a draw, 3-3. It was some of our first times going to an MLS game, so we were really happy to have had the opportunity to go.
The next day, we got ourselves together, started our data dictionary, and finally drove down to Albany. After our three-hour drive down south, we checked into the hotel and grabbed some dinner at Harvest Moon. The next morning, before our busy day of meetings, we stopped in The Cookie Shoppe for breakfast, mostly featuring plenty of biscuits. Afterward, we walked to our meeting location. Here’s the basic schedule of our day:
- 9 – 10:30 Albany’s DCED department, a discussion of the housing projects
- 10:30 – 12 conversations with Albany’s utilities department
- 1 – 2:30 Georgia Smart Communities working meeting
- 2:30 – 4 meeting with Fight Albany Blight (FAB)
Through these meetings, we feel that we’ve gained a much better understanding of the context of the project and the places and people we are working with. It was lovely to meet everyone in Albany. Following our busy day of meetings, Ms. Shuronda Hawkins was kind enough to give us a tour of downtown Albany. Before we left for Atlanta, we grabbed dinner at The Flint with our team and Ms. Hawkins.
Since returning to Atlanta, we’ve come back feeling refreshed and excited to finish up our work on the project. We look forward to finalizing our database so it can be passed onto Albany and they can continue on with their incredible work.