Atlanta

Hotlanta

The weekend of June 17th, we were in Atlanta (although it already seems more than one month ago at the rate we are going through cities). We met up with my family and Tracy was so kind to put a roof over our heads, and serve us incredibly delicious food!

We spent the first day in downtown Atlanta. We strolled through Centennial Park; not too long though since it was very hot and humid outside. We explored the huge Georgia aquarium, one of the biggest in the world.

We also followed the tourist herds to the Coca Cola museum (Coca Cola is headquartered in Atlanta). It still amazes me that a lot of people - including ourselves - are willing to pay $15 to go see the commercials at the Coke museum. On the other hand, the museum offers a very cool tasting experience, definitely worth your bucks: you get to taste and compare different special "exclusive" soft drinks from all over the world. We came to the conclusion that drinks in Asia are soft and delicate, drinks in Europe are more sour and prickly, drinks in North America are very sweet and drinks in Latin America are extremely sweet and fruity.

Last on our list in downtown Atlanta, was the tour behind the scenes at CNN. Unfortunately, we don't have any breaking news to report on our tour but seeing the weather girl perform her 5 minute live show is more exciting than you would think.

Our second day, we crossed the other touristy things from our to do list. We visited the High Museum of Art - I don't know what impressed me more, the art or the architecture by Renzo Piano.

Further on our program were the Atlanta Zoo (included in our citypasses) where we most appreciated the baby panda and the parokeets (the zoo was OK but not better than our Antwerp zoo...) and the Atlanta Botanical Garden with its amazing orchid collection.

On Sunday, Tracy showed us around in Marietta, a "suburb" near Atlanta which has a surprisingly rich history (civil war battles were fought here over Atlanta). The city square was very beautiful and had a very good bakery with real croissants (a big treat when you're on the road in the South!). After a delicious "light" Southern lunch, we said goodbye to Tracy and we were on the road again...