Okay, well I'm home now (got back around 6PM last night). I would've posted earlier, but I had to pack up my PC Wednesday night, so we could check out faster. I did write some notes to myself about what we did on Wed., so I will use that to refresh my memory. I'm glad to be home because of the security of my normal routine, but I'm also depressed that now I'm in a boring place. :/
Anyway, heres goes:
I told Randy about what I thought we should do instead of going to the Henry Ford Museum on Wed. and instead going into downtown Detroit, to see GM World and the Renaissance Center, then maybe taking the People Mover around (there's a station at the Ren Cen). That way we could see the downtown but still be (what I thought should be) relatively safe. Plus, if we didn't want to take the time to go around on the People Mover, but still see downtown, we could go up to the overlook at the top of the Ren Cen (only later did I learn that it doesn't have that feature anymore).
Randy asked the receptionist at our hotel about where we should go. The lady gave Randy the statement not to take the People Mover, not to go into Downtown (a sentiment all too common with Detroit locals) and instead, to go to Ann Arbor (Michigan University, I don't think so) or go into, but not outside of, Greektown (which is very close to the Ren Cen and in downtown; ironic, no?). Well, when Randy told me that another person had told him NOT to go downtown, and instead go somewhere, I just about lost it. Everybody has been telling us not to go downtown, mainly because (I think) Downtown has a bad reputation and everybody's afraid of going down there and forming their own opinion. We went through downtown on Tuesday night (one thing your "not supposed to do" is go into downtown at night) and it seemed fine. We didn't get stalked by anybody and there were no menacing characters lurking around ready to stab us the second we got out of our car.
Well, I finally got Randy to agree to go to the Ren Cen and GM World (which I knew closed at 5PM and we were rapidly losing time because of our disagreement) and not go onto the People Mover. He had to get up early and I thought that would be enough to make Wed. not seem like it was wasted and not something that would make us stay out too late. We got out on the road and hit some horrible traffic. We wasted about 30-45min. pretty much not going anywhere. When we finally got to where the traffic ended, we found out why: some dumbass left his car in one of the lanes (of which there were only two because of ongoing construction). After that, it was almost non-existant until we reached another slow-moving area, though nearly as bad as the earlier one. We found out later after getting through the traffic, that it was, yet again, caused by some dumbass breaking down in one of the two lanes (people like that should be sued if it's something that happens only because of their own ignorance, like running out of gas.
Well, we finally got into downtown (just around the time GM World was closing) and pulled up into the parking garage closest to the Ren Cen (provided to us by the GPS phone). We walked out onto the streets and gazed at the giant skyscraper (not as big as the Sears Tower, but wonderous none-the-less). We went into Marriot hotel across the street to try to take the "Skywalk" across to the GM Headquarters. We got lost for a bit, but found our way (on the way, a stop at Starbucks. ;) I talked to a security guard at a desk right after exiting and found out that GM World was indeed closed for the day and that they didn't have the overlook feature anymore. I was very disappointed, but I decided since I'm paying parking (a total I would find out later of $10; what a rip-off), we might as well do what we can here.
We went down to street-level again and went inside the front doors. We were greeted by some cars inside the building in a see-through glass exterior and continued on inside. We took an escalator down to where GM World was and found that we could still get a good look at it, even though we could go inside. There was a food court down here as well, and we decided to eat at a GyroWorld (good stuff, though a tad expensive). After eating, we walked around the perimeter of GM World and at the halfway mark, we took a side trip to the other side of the building overlooking Detroit River. There was a big atrium there with massive palm trees inside the building and some swanky shops scattered around. I went outside and took some photos of the building and looked over to Canada and could see the Ambassador Bridge (though none of the photos I attempted to take came out well). We went inside again and continued on our way around GM World. Then, on our way, I took some more photos and we left downtown, passing through Greektown, which did look pretty cool.
We headed back to our room to regroup and decide what to do next. I noticed that there was a message on our room's phone and I was sad to hear it. My mom had called me from home telling me that my Grandmother (the only grandparent I have left) had stopped eating and would most likely die soon. This came as a surprise, but I had known that this was coming, just didn't know when. She told me the were going to take a trip up there, but I didn't know if I would be back in time.
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