The work week was fairly hectic, but mostly with things that were urgent and not really important. I had another nasty run-in with a secretary who I've disliked for a while and who, fortunately, I won't have to be dealing with in the future thanks to our reorg. In short, she chewed me out over not putting in an overage code in the per diem column of my expense report. Which I hadn't done since my totals were all 20 or more dollars under per diem, even though the hotel room rate was a dollar over. It was more or less impossible to get her to understand the concept of a negative number. All in all, very frustrating.
I was glad to have a busy weekend planned. I went to Atlanta, largely to add to my list of ballparks, as well as to do another capital city Volksmarch. I flew down Friday evening. Between a flight delay for mechanical problems and a long wait for the MARTA train at the airport, I was pretty exhausted by the time I got to the hotel. I was staying at the Fairfield Inn downtown. I had made the reservation based on a map of downtown Atlanta which I'd found on the net. Alas, the map was rather inadequate and the hotel was really two blocks east of where they had shown it. That meant a bit of a schlep from the MARTA station.
And, more to the point, it also put the hotel immediately next to a construction site where the hammering began before 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Not exactly the best start to the day, seeing as how I hand't gotten to bed until about midnight. But there wasn't much I could do about it.
My priority for Saturday was doing the aforementioned Volksmarch. The route was a pretty comprehensive tour of downtown Atlanta and then some. In addition to passing the Georgia State Capitol, the walk continued south, past the Olympic flame cauldron and rings and to Turner Field. Crossing the former site of Fulton County Stadium, I was pleased to note the monument marking the spot where Hank Aaron's 715th home run landed. Continuing back to downtown, the walk went past the World of Coca-Cola and the Georgia Freight Depot, which has an interesting mural of marine life, a.k.a. the whaling wall. The next part of the route was through Underground Atlanta, which has a surprising number of historic signs in addition to the touristy shops and restaurants. The story is that these are the original streets of Atlanta, until viaducts were built above them to keep pedestrians from having to mix with trains and trollies. Now, it's pretty much an entertainment district and tourist trap.
The next part of the walk was up Peachtree Street, which is the major street of Atlanta and not to be confused with the several thousand (okay, just about 30) other streets in Atlanta which have Peachtree in their names. Then it was west to the new Georgia Aquarium. I decided that I was doing well enough on time that I might as well go and see it. The aquarium opened in November 2005 and is alleged to be the largest in the world. That is probably measured by gallons of water, as I supsect others may have greater variety. Some of the highlights are two whale sharks, five beluga whales, lots of nice shiny colorful coral reef fish, and a few tanks of jellies. Best of all, they have a huge number of my favorite fish - the leafy sea dragon, who get to share a tank with several weedy sea dragons. All in all, it's worth a couple of hours, though admission is a bit pricy.
I continued with the walk, passing through Centennial Olympic Park, and then past Philips Arena, the Georgia Dome, and CNN Center, before returning to the start. All in all, it was a reasonably pleasant walk and certainly covered the downtown sites fairly thoroughly.
I went back to the hotel and rested before the game. Then I walked back to Underground Atlanta and took the MARTA shuttle over to Turner Field. The ballpark was originally built for the 1996 Olympics, but I've read that they always intended to convert it to baseball use after the games. It's not quite one of the new breed, being somewhat too large and too symmetric. There's a fair amount of gimmicky kids theme park stuff (Scouts Alley, a Cartoon Network arcade, a big video screen with things like a "dance for your dinner" contest). The concessions are nothing special either. On the plus side, this is the only ballpark I've been to (so far) which gives you a free program. Other good things about the experience were the lack of a mascot and the presence of knowledgeable, enthusiastic fans. The latter is a bit of a mixed blessing as they really do that "chop chop" thing, including foam tomahawks in many cases. I guess political correctness never made it that far south. Also on the minus side, they only sing one verse of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and follow it with "Thank G-d I'm a Country Boy." At least it isn't as misplaced there as it is in Baltimore, but it's still annoying. (And, yes, I do sing "Sweet Caroline" when i go to Fenway, but that is entirely different.)
As for the game, it certainly offered plenty of drama. I was slightly cheering for the visiting Washington Nationals, but I have to admit they're weak offensively. The Nats managed to pull ahead 5-3, thanks to a rally started by pitcher Mike O'Connor who got the first base hit of his life. (Well, okay, of the season, but aren't ball players born anew each April?) Alas, there was the bottom of the ninth. The first Braves batter hit a solo home run. That was followed by hits and walks and before I knew it it was the bottom of the ninth, two men were out, the bases were loaded. Jeff Francouer's grand slam home run got the Braves an 8-5 victory and triggered an exuberant local celebration. Moments like that are what people like me love about the game, even when they happen to the wrong side. It really ain't over till it's over.
They don't hammer away at construction sites on Sunday morning, so I was able to sleep a bit later. I thought about what sightseeing to do and decided to go to the Bodies Exhibiton at the Civic Center. This is one of those displays of real human bodies and body parts, prepared using a polymerization process which replaces the fluids with, essentially, plastic. It's interesting and informative and not quite as creepy as it sounds at first. One of the most interesting displays were the skeleton and the rest of the body from the same person. The circulatory system, which they used red and blue polymers for, was also intriguing. The area on fetal development has a by-pass for people who don't want to see things like birth defects. I was surprised that it took over two hours to see the entire exhibit.
I was already relatively far north, so I walked a little further north and several blocks west to have lunch at The Varsity, a place I'd heard about for ages. The story is that a Georgia Tech student was told by his professor he was so incompetent that he couldn't even run a hot dog stand. They do a roaring business in hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, onion rings and so on. I was less impressed with the food than with the atmosphere, but I'm not really the right sort of person to ask about this stuff. The onion rings were definitely too greasy, for example. But it's just too cute to sit at a school desk to eat your meal. (There are other rooms with conventional tables.)
I hopped on MARTA and took the train back to Five Points and toured the World of Coca-Cola. Which, by the way, is going to be moving to a new site next to the aquarium next summer. Admission is $9, which is a bit steep but almost worth it. The exhibits take you through the history of Coke and include lots of pictures of Coca-Cola advertising. Given the recent news stories about soft drinks in schools, I was amused to learn that one of the earliest places Coca-Cola advertised was on the backs of report cards! There's a jukebox that plays only Coke-related songs and a demo of how Coke was made at soda fountains in the 1930's, as well as several video clips. However, there is next to no information about how the company branched out into other products, e.g. Sprite and Fanta. Those do get some attention in the final room, which has tasting sections for both American beverages and international ones. The latter includes an apricot flavor from Japan, passion-fruit Fanta from Papua New Guinea, and a Chinese apple-flavored drink. And, yes, they have Stoney Ginger Beer, my second favorite soft drink on the planet (behind Schweppes Bitter Lemon, which is not a product of the Coca-Cola corporation). I also managed to prove that I'm weird by being the only person who liked Beverly, a bitter appertif flavor from Italy.
I walked back to the hotel, retrieved my bags, and took MARTA to the airport. I should note that, while the MARTA trains are reasonably clean, efficient, and easy to use, there are some flaws in the system. For example, their new "Breeze" card works fine on entering the system, but there's no indication on it of how much value is left. (And, oddly, the machines sell you multiple single-fare cards, making it unclear why you're supposedly able to add value to them.) The trains display the destination on the electronic screens inside, while the current station would be far more useful. And they have annoying video screens showing ads.
Atlanta's airport is hugely busy but relatively efficient. At one point while waiting for my flight, there was a warning sound and an announcement saying "There's an emergency in the building. Listen for further instructions." That was repeated a couple of times, but I guess whatever situation triggered it was resolved as there wasn't anything further. My flight back was a little late but not seriously so and the Washington Metro proved more efficient than usual. Still, I was tired and more or less collapsed. All in all, it was a pleasant weekend, satisfying a couple of my obsessions, and worth the exhaustion. However, should I have reason to go to Atlanta again, I think I'd stay in midtown, rather than downtown, and I certainly would try to do a better job of avoiding construction zones!
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel