travelogue: atlanta and tennesee
Day 1:
Brother had booked an ungodly 7 am flight. He spent the night at my place so I got the responsibility of driving him to the airport at 5 am ish. I’m not sure how I managed this because I’m pretty sure I was actually asleep whilst driving. v. dangerous, good thing there was nobody on the road. Came home, fell asleep for another 2 hours, frantically (always frantically) ran for the bus so I could take BART to the airport. All is well, find parents with little to no difficulty. Delighted to find out mother has packed ham and mayo sandwiches on homemade raisin bread. And grapes! Crazy large grapes on steroids. Delish.
The flight was pretty mediocre. By the end of it I was itching to get off the plane. Normally I really enjoy flying, but I guess I was a little too tired to enjoy it and didn’t have enough good magazines. I flew through my InStyle and watched the ending to “Hot Rod” – surprisingly okay. I just couldn’t help laughing during the “raising money for step dad to get a surgery so I can kick the crap out of him later” montage…getting hit by a refrigerator is funny okay?? Can’t a girl enjoy a little toilet humor without getting flack for it?
We touched down in Atlanta at 8 or so their time and I was highly displeased to discover that it was not “San Francisco in the winter” like my sister had said but much, MUCH colder (yeah, WHATEVER Elaine!). I was happy to quickly hustle onto the hotel shuttle to our hotel. Too bad we were misinformed by my brother and went to the wrong hotel…what? What do you mean we’re at the wrong Marriott?. After much confusion, we finally ended up taking a taxi to our correct hotel. Unfortunately the only taxi driver available was the crazy macabre type that I was almost sure was about to stab us for our meager luggage. I kept quiet in the back while he started ranting about how the end was coming, that he truly believed that God was going to smote us sometime in like…the next 2 weeks or something. The entire time I couldn’t help thinking “If you really think there are only 2 weeks left, what the hell are you doing spending your last moments driving a cab for? Shouldn’t you be out, I dunno, having fun or something?”
Arrive at hotel safely…great rooms. In fact, fantastic rooms. I was stoked. Bring on the pampering! And so we did. By going to have our first southern dinner. This would be the first of about 12 HUGE meals that I would endure with my family. I swear to you, I was so sick of eating by the end of this trip. I felt like if I saw another fried chicken leg , biscuit, or tub of macaroni and cheese I was apt to saw my arm off.
Day 2:
Slept in and headed out to Stone Mountain Park. Imagine Uluru (the big rock in the middle of Australia) but smaller, not red, and with a carving on the side of it. Even though it’s pretty inferior to Uluru in every way, if you were never to make it to Australia you could at least go to Stone Mountain in Atlanta and get the same feel for that type of huge geological formation (read as: huge ass rock). We bought day passes to the park and rode the gondola up for some sightseeing. Great views. Mom commented on the changing of the leaves. She probably mentioned this at least another 200 times during the trip. Love you, Mom.
I’m not sure how we managed this, but we spent the ENTIRE day at that friggin’ park. Gondola + Ride the Duck trip into the lake + crappy theme park + fake plantation = dying Joanna. Okay, I guess it was all pretty interesting…the theme park was just fun simply because it was just so crappy. It was only the 23rd of November, not even Thanksgiving yet, and Christmas looked like it had thrown up all over this park. There were enough Christmas lights to light a village twice the size of what it was. There seemed to be about 5 employees for every 1 visitor, and every single employee was costumed (and quite unhappily, I might add) as an elf or something of that nature. Pretty much every worker had a bored expression on their face and muttered “Merry Christmas” in a monotone voice as I passed by. and it was COLD, goddammit. Really, really cold! Later on in the evening was the laser show and fireworks against the rock (oooooh…ahhhhhh…) which sounded good in theory, but turned out to be disgustingly lame. Turns out the firework show equaled 2 sad fireworks at the end.
But the BEST part of Stone Mountain, the pièce de résistance, was the 4-d Polar Express show! My brother and I found this particularly fascinating, as we weren’t aware that the 4th dimension even existed. I mean I always thought the 4th dimension was hypothetical…who knew that the talented engineers at a crappy theme park in Atlanta had figured it all out? ;) hooey, turns out the 4th dimension means that while you’re watching a 3d movie they spray water all over you. Great, I’m cold and wet. Wonderful.
Day 3
Up and at ‘em early in the morning, we drove to Tennesee in search of a Cracker Barrel, a large chain restaurant all throughout Tennessee. In Georgia I felt like you couldn’t go 2 miles without seeing another Waffle House, but in Tennessee it’s all about Cracker Barrel. I pigged out (AGAIN) on blueberry waffles, hashbrown casserole (admittedly good, although I think my heart stopped beating for a second after my first bite of this), chicken livers, and heavenly biscuits. According to Andy’s father after dining here we could officially call ourselves “white trash”. Ah, it’s great sharing other cultures, isn’t it? I somehow got convinced by my mom that Tennessee is known for their peanuts so I bought some peanut brittle from here to bring home. I found out later from Andy that this is completely untrue. Thanks mom. Really, I do love you.
Afterwards we hightailed it to my sister’s other wedding reception, the TRUE purpose of this entire trip. I was still full from cracker barrel but managed to sample some deep fried meatballs while chatting with Andy’s Crazy Aunt ™. No really, this is what everybody calls her. The average age there was probably about 70 something…so I tried to look pretty, act polite, and take pictures when people asked me to. We drove home after that and had dinner at a lovely (and sort of expensive) restaurant. I don’t remember what it was called, but they had awesome food. This was probably the only time I didn’t feel like dying after I finished eating.
Day 4
Up early again since we were flying out that day. We wanted to spend our last hours doing some proper sightseeing. We headed downtown early and checked out the Coca Cola experience. My brother made me drink some horrid soda from the UK and we each left with a free bottle of coke. Oddly enough, they also had a 4-d movie experience! Oh my, the epidemic is spreading quickly!
Then we went to the CNN building. Uh, can we say “snore”? yeah, the tour sorta sucked. Skip this unless you are some crazy CNN fan. But whatever. We swept off to the airport to wait for 4 hours and finally got on our flight back home. Ahh, home.
Phew! I’d say overall my trip the South was pleasant and interesting. There were definitely a few trying moments simply from the fact that it’s been the first time I’ve spent a significant amount of continuous time with my family in…well in really quite awhile. But at least we got some good quality family time out of it and some silly pictures. I have some rockin’ pictures of my family in 3-d glasses.
Until next time!
Brother had booked an ungodly 7 am flight. He spent the night at my place so I got the responsibility of driving him to the airport at 5 am ish. I’m not sure how I managed this because I’m pretty sure I was actually asleep whilst driving. v. dangerous, good thing there was nobody on the road. Came home, fell asleep for another 2 hours, frantically (always frantically) ran for the bus so I could take BART to the airport. All is well, find parents with little to no difficulty. Delighted to find out mother has packed ham and mayo sandwiches on homemade raisin bread. And grapes! Crazy large grapes on steroids. Delish.
The flight was pretty mediocre. By the end of it I was itching to get off the plane. Normally I really enjoy flying, but I guess I was a little too tired to enjoy it and didn’t have enough good magazines. I flew through my InStyle and watched the ending to “Hot Rod” – surprisingly okay. I just couldn’t help laughing during the “raising money for step dad to get a surgery so I can kick the crap out of him later” montage…getting hit by a refrigerator is funny okay?? Can’t a girl enjoy a little toilet humor without getting flack for it?
We touched down in Atlanta at 8 or so their time and I was highly displeased to discover that it was not “San Francisco in the winter” like my sister had said but much, MUCH colder (yeah, WHATEVER Elaine!). I was happy to quickly hustle onto the hotel shuttle to our hotel. Too bad we were misinformed by my brother and went to the wrong hotel…what? What do you mean we’re at the wrong Marriott?. After much confusion, we finally ended up taking a taxi to our correct hotel. Unfortunately the only taxi driver available was the crazy macabre type that I was almost sure was about to stab us for our meager luggage. I kept quiet in the back while he started ranting about how the end was coming, that he truly believed that God was going to smote us sometime in like…the next 2 weeks or something. The entire time I couldn’t help thinking “If you really think there are only 2 weeks left, what the hell are you doing spending your last moments driving a cab for? Shouldn’t you be out, I dunno, having fun or something?”
Arrive at hotel safely…great rooms. In fact, fantastic rooms. I was stoked. Bring on the pampering! And so we did. By going to have our first southern dinner. This would be the first of about 12 HUGE meals that I would endure with my family. I swear to you, I was so sick of eating by the end of this trip. I felt like if I saw another fried chicken leg , biscuit, or tub of macaroni and cheese I was apt to saw my arm off.
Day 2:
Slept in and headed out to Stone Mountain Park. Imagine Uluru (the big rock in the middle of Australia) but smaller, not red, and with a carving on the side of it. Even though it’s pretty inferior to Uluru in every way, if you were never to make it to Australia you could at least go to Stone Mountain in Atlanta and get the same feel for that type of huge geological formation (read as: huge ass rock). We bought day passes to the park and rode the gondola up for some sightseeing. Great views. Mom commented on the changing of the leaves. She probably mentioned this at least another 200 times during the trip. Love you, Mom.
I’m not sure how we managed this, but we spent the ENTIRE day at that friggin’ park. Gondola + Ride the Duck trip into the lake + crappy theme park + fake plantation = dying Joanna. Okay, I guess it was all pretty interesting…the theme park was just fun simply because it was just so crappy. It was only the 23rd of November, not even Thanksgiving yet, and Christmas looked like it had thrown up all over this park. There were enough Christmas lights to light a village twice the size of what it was. There seemed to be about 5 employees for every 1 visitor, and every single employee was costumed (and quite unhappily, I might add) as an elf or something of that nature. Pretty much every worker had a bored expression on their face and muttered “Merry Christmas” in a monotone voice as I passed by. and it was COLD, goddammit. Really, really cold! Later on in the evening was the laser show and fireworks against the rock (oooooh…ahhhhhh…) which sounded good in theory, but turned out to be disgustingly lame. Turns out the firework show equaled 2 sad fireworks at the end.
But the BEST part of Stone Mountain, the pièce de résistance, was the 4-d Polar Express show! My brother and I found this particularly fascinating, as we weren’t aware that the 4th dimension even existed. I mean I always thought the 4th dimension was hypothetical…who knew that the talented engineers at a crappy theme park in Atlanta had figured it all out? ;) hooey, turns out the 4th dimension means that while you’re watching a 3d movie they spray water all over you. Great, I’m cold and wet. Wonderful.
Day 3
Up and at ‘em early in the morning, we drove to Tennesee in search of a Cracker Barrel, a large chain restaurant all throughout Tennessee. In Georgia I felt like you couldn’t go 2 miles without seeing another Waffle House, but in Tennessee it’s all about Cracker Barrel. I pigged out (AGAIN) on blueberry waffles, hashbrown casserole (admittedly good, although I think my heart stopped beating for a second after my first bite of this), chicken livers, and heavenly biscuits. According to Andy’s father after dining here we could officially call ourselves “white trash”. Ah, it’s great sharing other cultures, isn’t it? I somehow got convinced by my mom that Tennessee is known for their peanuts so I bought some peanut brittle from here to bring home. I found out later from Andy that this is completely untrue. Thanks mom. Really, I do love you.
Afterwards we hightailed it to my sister’s other wedding reception, the TRUE purpose of this entire trip. I was still full from cracker barrel but managed to sample some deep fried meatballs while chatting with Andy’s Crazy Aunt ™. No really, this is what everybody calls her. The average age there was probably about 70 something…so I tried to look pretty, act polite, and take pictures when people asked me to. We drove home after that and had dinner at a lovely (and sort of expensive) restaurant. I don’t remember what it was called, but they had awesome food. This was probably the only time I didn’t feel like dying after I finished eating.
Day 4
Up early again since we were flying out that day. We wanted to spend our last hours doing some proper sightseeing. We headed downtown early and checked out the Coca Cola experience. My brother made me drink some horrid soda from the UK and we each left with a free bottle of coke. Oddly enough, they also had a 4-d movie experience! Oh my, the epidemic is spreading quickly!
Then we went to the CNN building. Uh, can we say “snore”? yeah, the tour sorta sucked. Skip this unless you are some crazy CNN fan. But whatever. We swept off to the airport to wait for 4 hours and finally got on our flight back home. Ahh, home.
Phew! I’d say overall my trip the South was pleasant and interesting. There were definitely a few trying moments simply from the fact that it’s been the first time I’ve spent a significant amount of continuous time with my family in…well in really quite awhile. But at least we got some good quality family time out of it and some silly pictures. I have some rockin’ pictures of my family in 3-d glasses.
Until next time!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home