out and about: Atlanta, GA

Me, Jake, Gary, and Ashley at the World of Coke on the American Idol couch.

Hello again! Last weekend some friends and I decided to do a weekend trip up to Atlanta to see all the sights and hit up a Braves game. Originally we were supposed to be a group of five but our friend Dewey decided to head up to Ohio for a week at the last minute. He goes to GA Tech so we were supposed to be staying at his apartment but instead he just gave us the key which was nice. So we make the four hour drive and arrive at his apartment to an angry security guard telling us that we can't park without a resident. We call up Dewey's roommate, Bennett, (who we know to be the only resident of this apartment) and he kindly let us in despite never having met us. As soon as we get into the apartment we find about seven more people all hanging out. Most of them were Georgia State kids, one was a marine, three were straight from South Korea and came to Atlanta to learn English (we taught them how to say "nah mean?"). They were really friendly so we felt welcomed in no time but it was a little awkward just showing up without Dewey haha.

Anyways, we went to bed and woke up bright and early to start our day off at a tasty diner by the aquarium (I forget the name of it). That's where we met up with Lydia who was passing through town. We then intended to go to the aquarium but after a ridiculously long wait in line (while it was well over 100 F out) we decided to do coke world instead. I should explain that we had CityPasses and got a ticket for the aquarium, coke world, a cnn tour, and two museums so we waited in line to pick that up which is why we could just go to coke world. Anyways, Lydia didn't want to go to coke world so she left and we had THE BEST TIME in coke world.

First of all, they had the 2012 London Olympic torch and we got to take a photo with it. Secondly, they had a coke tasting room where you could try coca cola products from around the world and some of them were delicious but the more entertaining flavors were absolutely disgusting haha. Don't try The Beverly. We also got to see the vault, a little bottling area, some really cool art... it was awesome. Then we headed off for the Braves game. I forgot to mention that we walked from Dewey's place to Coke World (about two miles) in the ridiculous heat and then attempted to walk to Turner Field but it was way too hot and we ended up catching a bus. The game was great though because Jake had strategically chosen seats in the shade so we sat back, had some peanuts and bratwurst (I don't know what happened to the ball park franks from the days of yore?), and watched the Washington Nationals lose... :(

After that we were pretty exhausted so we took a taxi home. Well, first the driver tried to drop us off at a strip club but then we told the guy, "WEST Marietta street, not Marietta street..." Hah. We cleaned ourselves up a bit and headed out to an amazing restaurant with Bennett called Ecco. It was absolutely amazing. We had Gouda with salami and oven baked pizza mmmmmmm it was delicious. After that day we were simply exhausted and passed out really fast when we got back to Dewey's place.

The next day was more of the same. We started out really early at the aquarium (the largest in the world) and had an absolute blast there. The dolphin show: amazing, the whale sharks: awesome, the belugas: fantastic. My favorite part was probably either the dolphin show (despite the story line haha) or the awesome tank that you could go under and have whale sharks and manta rays swimming over you--or maybe this place where an entire wall was just glass. I could have sat in that room watching the tank all day.

Anyways, after the aquarium we did a tour of the CNN studios. It was pretty cool but not nearly as cool as coke world or the aquarium. I'd never been to a Hard Rock Cafe which is where we ended up eating for dinner so that was a really cool experience too. I saw them in nearly every city in Europe it seemed so I guess it was about time I went to one hah. Our last stop was the mall so that Ashley could get her computer fixed.

We rolled out for Savannah around 6:30pm. Ashley looked at the sky and said "do you think it's going to rain?" I said, "yeah probably, those clouds seem pretty dark." Well, it rained. A lot. Maybe around 7 or 7:30pm it started pouring and there was lighting all over the place with an accompanying roar of thunder for each bolt. At one point the rain was so thick I could only see two dashed lines on the highway in front of me. We passed by a jack knifed semi, a flipped over car, and saw a bolt of lighting hit a tree in front of us--it was madness. At one point I was only driving 25 mph! We made it back by 11pm to find that our apartment had no power but it came back on while we were asleep. It was certainly an adventure!

We're actually heading out to Atlanta to finish up using our CityPasses tonight, woohoo! Thanks for reading!