The ATL

Between getting the chance to visit a close friend and checking out some southern culture, I decided to head down to Atlanta last weekend. It's only a ninety minute flight and I booked while it was still reasonably cheap.

The first night, we had dinner at Harmony, a vegetarian Chinese place. Ended up partaking in some duck, which was pretty tasty. I honestly couldn't tell that it was fake meat, which is saying something since I like meat. Hit up The Chocolate Bar for some dessert, and had some mighty good chocolate - "oreos and milk" (souffle stuffed with ganache and served with milk sorbet). As for grabbing drinks, we ended up around East Atlanta. Specifically at Smith's Olde Bar, Blind Willie's, and Dark Horse. The first two places featured live music, which is always nice. Only Blind Willie's had reasonable cover though, but at least it was a blues bar.

On a side note, there was an interesting version of designated driver roaming around. Some guy in an orange shirt wanders around with a motorbike looking for inebriated groups. On finding said people, he drives the group home in their own car, with the bike folded up in the trunk. Drop off passengers, collect money, retrieve bike, rinse & repeat. I thought it was interesting.

As for touristy stuff, that happened downtown. Wandered through the CNN center for a bit before heading off to Centennial Olympic Park. Ended up in the Fountain of Rings for awhile, although I was by far the driest of the group. Afterwards, we made our way to The World of Coke. They've got some cool stuff as far as the history and production of Coke goes. However, the highlight of the place was the tasting room - where you get to try sixty-four Coke products from around the world. Sixty four cups later, I decided most of it was pretty good and that I like apple soda. There were some disgusting flavors though, e.g. cough syrup and uncarbonated sugar water. Also, Fanta is kind of a big deal around the world, they've just got some weird flavors. Either way, my stomach was definitely hurting afterwards and I think I had a legitimate sugar crash on the train ride home. On that note, the MARTA (train) is a lot nicer and quieter than the L up here. And, it actually runs at full speed for the entire line. Nice.

Overall, Atlanta was a nice town to visit. I only heard "y'all" a few times and didn't really notice many southern accents. The town's a bit more sprawling than I expected, but if you're near a MARTA station you're good to go. Oh, and I met an amazing four year old. She's definitely sharper and more curious than I was at that age. Promising in that regard, but kinda saddening for other reasons too.