This is the girl that says, "In the next couple days," that you don't here from for over a month... yeah, sorry about that.
You know when you work on something for hours and then it crashes or doesn't save..... yeah.... I had a really great, long blog post for you all, but my internet was failing and it didn't save like I thought it did. Noooow, I have to try to recreate it. I know that it won't be nearly as good, but I'll try. This post has lost bits and pieces repeatedly, but I still want to talk about Atlanta. It's about a month late, but we can forget about that, right? School and exams just got in the way.
Before I go into the whole Atlanta experience, I'd like to share this with you all.These are the different ways people are accessing my blog...
Referring Sites
Now, the first two, I get; I connect every blog post to Facebook (Something I will eventually stop doing, so you all should start subscribing if you're interested). I do not, however, know how connections are being made between these other sites and my blog. I also have a lot of views coming from Russia. If any other bloggers read this, has the same thing happened to you?
And now.... on to ATLANTA! This trip originated from stories that my sister would make up when I was young about Coca-cola World. She would tell my brother and I that we would drive there and back in one day and hang out with polar bears and drink lots of coke. Well, the later part was true, and there was a "polar bear" there.
On Christmas, my sister sat us down to talk and for a second I panicked just a little. However, she made it seem a lot more serious than wanting to take a trip! Because this year I will be turning 21 and Derek will be turning 18, this was our last trip before adulthood set in. Really, we've never done something this big as just the three of us. The last thing that we all did was Siblings Weekend at Oakland 10 years ago! So, I'm going to narrate a couple pictures here, the rest can be viewed on Facebook and if you click on these pictures, they can be viewed in a larger size.
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| Aquarium and World of Coca-cola |
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| Atlanta, Georgia |
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Siblings and I (and a creepy lady)
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| Derek in front of the Hilton |
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| Centennial Olympic Park |
At first, I was a little skeptical on Atlanta, the bus and subway system is not the best and I am much more fond of Chicago, DC, and Boston. It is more of a business town than anything and the hotels are built to house business men and women. It's less of a tourist destination than the other cities, but the hotel was enormous, and pretty awesome. Derek and I played tennis of the roof on the third floor... and lost two tennis balls off of the roof. I wasn't quite sold on the big city until I saw the Centennial Olympic Park where the 1996 Olympics were held. The only bummer is that I didn't get to see it at night.
We got a CityPASS to see Atlanta, giving us access to CNN and the High Museum of Art, and my favorites The World of Coca-Cola, Georgia Aquarium, and Zoo Atlanta. The CNN tour surprised me because the main floor is like a mall with stores and a food court, but it was very interesting. It reminded me of the tour that Jenn and I took of a local TV station on my first trip to Boston, but this time we weren't accompanied by a rowdy group of boy scouts.
The museum was the first place we went, and there was pretty interesting art there. I don't think it was really up the alley of any of our interest, but there sure were a lot of things that made you turn your head to the side a say, "Huh." The picture to the right is a horse toy with a ceramic man face made mostly of bottle caps. Artsy... and very odd.
The Georgia Aquarium was massive and amazing. I don't think I have been to many aquariums, so it's hard to compare, but I certainly enjoyed it. One tip, get there early and get your show passes as soon as you get there. Luckily, a very nice employee sneaked us in to Dolphin Tales and that show was awesome. I also got to touch small sharks, sting rays, anemones, and star fish while we were there. It's just awesome, you need to go there!
The Zoo Atlanta was my third trip to a zoo in a month's time, but I was excited anyway. They had lots of baby animals and elephants. Zoo Atlanta was a lot smaller than I expected, much smaller than the Toledo Zoo, but had very nice exhibits. There were multiple ways to access the same exhibit in case an animal wasn't visible from one area. The Toledo Zoo was a blast, but a lot of the exhibits were closed, including the exhibit with the baby elephant, even though the sign outside said that it would be visible. I would really like to go back when the exhibits are open. As I said, the Zoo Atlanta was at no shortage for baby animals. Po, was my favorite, the little giant panda (oxymoron). To see Po in action, or sleeping, there is a webcam from 10 AM-5 PM on Monday through Friday that you can view!
Of course, the main attraction for the trip was The World of Coca-Cola. It had a ton of historical and cultural items that made me think of one of my current favorite shows, American Pickers. It was all cool, but probably the greatest part is the tasting room, where I got a stomach ache trying every drink from around the world.
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"You just haaave to try it!" Bleh!
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| My favorites (South America) |
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Derek's favorite (Pine nut) that was
really gross |
I really enjoyed the entire experience, even though it wasn't how it was described to me years ago. We even got a bottle of Coke that was bottled there, but we had to drink it instead of bringing it back because we only had carry on luggage and there is a liquid ounce limit of three ounces. If you want more information on the World of Coca-Cola, here's a link:
Taste it!
Another big part of our vacation was food. I used the Yelp! app on my Android to pick most of the restaurants we went to.
Papi's and
Gladys Knight and Ron Winans' Chicken and Waffles were two of my favorite places and we were able to walk to both from our hotel. I also really enjoyed
Googie Burger in Centennial Park and the hot dog stand we ate at between the aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. Food is important to me on any trip and the things that we found to do were fun.
My review on Atlanta... 8/10.
So, there is my very long, very delayed reflection on my trip to Atlanta. Many of the above mentioned attractions are linked so that you may find out more information, so feel free to click around. I am hoping for Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco, Saint Louis for the next sibling trip. Soon, I will be in Boston to visit my sister and brother-in-law. Speaking of Boston, that will probably be my last post before I make the six week switch to my other blog, Not a Pirate of the Caribbean. That blog can be viewed by clicking the tab above that will take you to a new url or you could subscribe. I highly encourage subscribing, one, so I feel awesome and popular, two, so that you will know when I post something new! Because the blogs are separate, I believe that you need to subscribe to each. There are already two posts there that I posted while I was neglecting this blog. Hopefully, that will excuse me a little bit. If you made it to the end, congratulations! I can't believe I am finally done with the post. Whew!
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