Damaged cornea/soul food/My first openly racial incident in Atlanta

Hi All,

I'm still here.
We did the Martin Luthur King museum which was very, very moving to both me and my friend.

Also had some real old style southern cooking at a place called busy Bee Cafe (yes, my jeans dont do up now....) lovely soul food cooking. Don't know If I've mentioned this, but Atlantans are sooo polite and lovely. The staff in shops, all of 'em... talking of shops... no... I MUST remain in denial. So what if it's bread and water for the next month as I pay off my shopping madness.

16th June

On the way to a comedy store yesterday, I started rubbing my eye and then it felt a little strange - as if somthing was in my eye. This soon turned into a slight headache. The next morning I felt really bad so off I went to ER and they said I have a corneal abrasion!Over a hundred dollars spent on medication alone, my eye is feeling a little better now. Gee! The last time I went to USA in 1997 for three months I contracted adult chicken pox!!! Am I allergic to the place?Nah... hope not...


17th June
Went to Justin's. P Diddy's restaurant for a drink and a half. I am aware my time in ATL is drawing to a close.
I DONT WANT IT TO!


19th June

As the two weeks draw to a close, my friend and I decided to have one last bigass breakfast in a local fast food joint. The waitress rolled up as normal and as usual, my friend and I were overwhelmed by the sheer choice of food on offer - even for a mere breakfast - pankcakes, french toast covered in caramel, sausages... This obvioulsy took some time. So the waitress appeared to drapt in reinforcements in the form of another waitress. I thought this odd and then she explained why she'd done this;
"I thought as she's also from Africa, she'd know what you eat..."
HUH?
As the steam poured from my friends rather tiny ears, I decided to quiz the waitress, further.
ME: "What WE eat?"
WAITRESS: "Yes, African people."
ME: " We have travelled from London, England."
WAITRESS: "Oh, REALLY?" (she looked perplexed to say the least).
ME: "So what do they eat in Africa then?"
WAITRESS: "All kinds of strange stuff..."
The conversation soon mutated onto the Japanease who SHE claims ate "weird raw stuff".
She then proceeded to let us know how she liked to call her black collegue (who she'd drapted in to 'help' us) Shaka Zulu.
SHAKA ZULU!!!!???
After the'd seen "all that dancing" in the film of the same name twenty years ago. Unfortunatly, the said young lady has never pulled her up about this and even has the name Shaka as her name tag....
OK.
Not much to say here.
However, I kept my cool as I saw it basically as ignorance. And I'm pleased to say, we probably educated this lady. Especially as my friend proceeded to remind her that salmon is also a raw fish (which the wauitress admitted she liked) meaning such practices were not just confined to other races. She is now also aware that people of colour actually exist in England and that I regularly have tea with the queen...