Hot-lanta was COLD

Blake and I had a chance to take a mini vacation to Atlanta this week since we both weren't working.  It was great to just get out of town and see something new!

We left Monday morning at around 8 and started our drive, Atlanta is about 300 miles away, so it would take us about 5 hours.  We started off and went through Augusta on the way, the town was definitely not as exciting as we thought, and we decided that when the pro golfers come for the Masters that they don't leave the completely gated course...  On our way it was fun to see where some of our Charleston friends are from, we drove through Bamberg (and saw some pretty interesting hunting techniques on the way, there was literally a guy sitting in his truck holding up an antenna waiting for his dog...), Augusta, and Conyers, GA.

We arrived downtown at the Hyatt and were in need of a quick nap, an hour later we were ready to see some of the city.  We knew we were close to the Coca-Cola museum and the Olympic Centennial Park so we walked the few blocks to get there.  The park was great, and they had a Christmas light display up so it was fun to see.  Next we headed in to the Coke museum.  There were SO many people but the line seemed to move pretty fast and we really enjoyed learning about the history of Coke and the giant marketer that they are.  We didn't get to see the "secret formula" because the line just to see it was about 45 minutes long, we were more interested in the 4D movie and of course, tasting the 100 or so flavors of Coca-Cola products that they had in the tasting room.  Some were MUCH better than others.  Sadly, they didn't have German Fanta, only the Greek version which is peach flavored, but it was still good.  There were some other flavors from the world that were very interesting, one was mint flavored and tasted like mouthwash, and Inca Cola from South America tasted like bananas.  Blake and I really enjoyed just tasting the regular coke and of course, Blake's favorite, Cherry Coke, direct from the source.

That night we went to the top of the Westin in Atlanta.  The hotel is circular and the tallest hotel in the western hemisphere (or it was, we're not quite sure), at the top they have a restaurant and bar which circles around so you can see the whole city if you sit there for an hour.  While enjoying our drinks (a whiskey for Blake and an OJ for me) we could see the whole skyline at night (Atlanta has 3 distinct skylines).  The most interesting part was getting to see the airport which is about 10 miles south of town.  Being the busiest airport in the world in terms of passengers and flights landing (in 2011, 89million+ passengers and 950,000+ flights), you could see a steady stream of planes landing and taking off, they just looked like little dots against the dark sky, but in perfect line formation.

We went in search of a restaurant to eat at and came across a mediterranean restaurant that seemed to get decent reviews on Urban Spoon.  It turned out to be Turkish food, which neither one of us had experienced before.  I had a stuffed eggplant with rice, and Blake had lamb (a food that I don't care for so he never gets it at home), the food was excellent, full of flavor, but not too heavy.  We even had enough room for dessert, I'm glad we did because it was the best baklava that I've ever eaten, not too sweet or sticky.  Another great part about dinner, someone actually noticed I was pregnant and not just in that weird chubby, is she or isn't she stage.. Yay!

On Tuesday we headed to Buckhead for some shopping.  Any time I can get to a Nordstrom I'm there, and they were having a sale for men so Blake wanted to buy a few things.  The shopping in Charleston leaves a lot to be desired.  The saddest part of this Nordstrom was the menu change in the cafe, no tomato basil soup :(, and they make my favorite salad with shrimp here instead of chicken.  I guess you can't always be at the flagship!   We headed up early and had to wait until the mall opened, Blake found lots of things and we even got to go to a Rack..  I got to go to a Gap Maternity store, so I was excited to look for some clothes that would actually fit.  :)  By the time we were done shopping the mall was a ZOO, I have never seen so many people at a mall ever, not even Bell Square at Christmas or during the Anniversary sale, and that says a lot!  Needless to say we were happy to drive back to our hotel for our daily nap.
Blake wanted to hear some music that night so we went down the street to Sweet Georgia's Juke Joint to listen to some Jazz.

The performer was excellent.  The restaurant was set up for dinner, drinks and music, but we had gone to Chinese before so we just had a drink (another OJ, YAY!) and ate some yummy bread pudding.  Blake was feeling adventurous and wasn't sure what to drink so he asked our waiter what people drank in Jazz clubs in Atlanta.  The waiter answered, "Moonshine".  Blake was intrigued so the waiter brought him a shot, Blake said he was waiting for it to taste like Everclear or some other straight alcohol as it was clear, but it actually was very smooth and had a hint of nutmeg, since I couldn't drink mine our waiter took it which was so generous of him.  I know that there is a lot of moonshine made in the south, but we had no idea some of it had been made legal, a lot of small distilleries are popping up.  The moonshine that Blake was drinking was called Catdaddy and was made in North Carolina, it's even available for purchase at a lot of liquor stores.  Blake had a manhattan and then throughout the night somehow we were brought 3 more shots of moonshine which Blake gladly drank (some quick internet research showed it was 80 proof), all for free...  See picture below for the after effect... :)

The music lasted until about 9:30 and we had the waitress take our picture (since we don't have enough pictures of us doing things together...) before we left.

On Wednesday morning we woke up and took a tour of the CNN headquarters, which was interesting although we didn't really get to see anyone broadcasting.

Then we headed for lunch at the Varsity, which is near the Georgia Tech campus.  It's apparently a thing to do in Atlanta, and they are known for their hotdogs and being the worlds largest single seller of Coke.  On game days about 30,000 people eat here.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the madness when you go up to the counter and they scream, "What'll ya have?" to keep the lines moving, they just yell it out at people... We had burgers, fries and chocolate shakes... To me, it didn't match up to Dick's in Seattle, but it was worth a shot..

After lunch we headed to the Atlanta Branch of the Federal Reserve, a must since I could not remember who the chairman was... yes, yes, I know... and then up to the art museum, which was a bust since Blake and I had both seen the traveling exhibit that they were having, oops!
We went home to nap and then headed out to the Virginia Highland neighborhood for dinner.  The neighborhood just outside of downtown and midtown was very reminiscent of Queen Anne and it was so cute.  There were lots of good restaurants and cute little shops.  We walked around for a while and ended up at Osteria 832  which was very much like Tutta Bella in Seattle.  The pizza and pasta we shared was excellent and it was very reasonable!  There were a lot of families eating and the place was packed.  I told Blake that this is what he had to look forward to soon!  We went to a yummy frozen yogurt place where you just filled up your cup with whatever flavors you wanted and then added toppings, we decided it was something we have to do more often.

On Thursday we decided to go back home instead of going somewhere further west or into the mountains. We stopped at Bass Pro so Blake could buy some sunglasses with his gc he got for Christmas and then we stopped at REI at the mall of Georgia.  It was decided that the best time to buy winter clothes was at the REI after Christmas sale, at an REI store in the south.  There were so many things and Blake and I made out like bandits for lots of winter clothes to face the arctic tundra next winter.  We at lunch in Greenville, and really wanted to stop for a tour at the BMW factory but they were closed for holiday break.  Hopefully we'll make it up another day.

All in all it was a great mini-vacation and we had a wonderful time in a new city.  Atlanta was awesome, and there was a lot to see and do.  We highly recommend it for a few days!  We're glad to be home for a "four-day weekend" and I already foresee going to work on Tuesday being very tough, the week should go by fast though as we have guests in town next week, we're excited for our visit from the Thompsons!