As I had only one full day in Charlotte, I wanted to make of good a use of it as I could. To get the day off to a relatively poor start, the rain was heavy and it was a Sunday, meaning the museums had limited opening times. My bad mood quickly dissipated however as soon as I entered the city.
The cabbie dropped me off in the south downtown area, right next to the Carolina Panthers stadium. Although it was completely closed down, I managed to get some good photos of the exterior. Slowly but surely, I was beginning to tick off a number of the NFL stadiums.
Charlotte is the second largest and most important financial centre in North America and located in it are many banks headquarters. This wealth meant that the city was full of skyscrapers and the streets were immaculately clean with trees and fountains all the way down. As everything was still shut down at this point I managed to find a Starbucks so I could Skype my parents. By the time that had finished, the visitor centre had opened so I wandered over there to see how best to use my time in the city. After some sage advice, I walked over to the Mint Museum which contained a number of artworks and objects throughout the history of North Carolina. The favourites of mine were a number of wooden sculptures by a local artist and the saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto, a Japanese artist, who would create intricate patterns on floors and walls using sea salt.
The next museum I visited, the Levine Museum of the New South, was one of the best I had visited in America. Although I had studied American history up until the Civil War and from WWII onwards, I had little understanding of the gap in between. This was the topic that the museum covered. What the museum lacked in funding, in comparison to the national museums, it made up for in rich detailed knowledge. Of particular interest to me was the state of civil rights and the growth of the KKK in the Carolinas after the end of the civil war. After some initial progress, African Americans and poor white farmers were again effectively denied voting rights due to their lack of wealth and property. There was also a section on the success of busing (sending children of each race to other neighbourhoods to encourage integration in schools) in North Carolina which was eventually discontinued leading to the de facto school segregation of children from different races.
By this time, although I thoroughly enjoy them, I was getting tired of walking around museums, trying to absorb every little piece of information so I headed down to the entertainment capital of the city, the EPICentre. I had an amazingly good burger in a sports bar whilst watching the NBA playoffs and flirting a little with the waitress (she loved the accent). As there was still much of the evening to go I decided to visit the cinema. With only 4 movies showing I had little choice so I went with the best available, Iron Man 3 (I know I said 'best' available) and went to the screen to take my seat. On the way into the cinema I was handed a menu... a menu?!?! I calmly enquired as to the purpose, to be told that you could order main meals in the cinema as people would walk around and take your order. When I went to sit down, I was apparently the only person who was not opting for such a service. Not only that but I had a double-sized seat all to myself... AND IT RECLINED (*simulates shooting myself in the head*). The film itself could have been worse I guess but it is definitely not my kind of film.
Another semi-expensive cab ride back to the motel, some more baseball, and eventually- sleep.
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