About ten minutes passed, then they let us back in saying it was a false alarm. The tasting room was a little disappointing. Both Alfred and I had been expecting to be able to try all the different international Coke varieties. Instead, we got to try a bunch of the random different beverages they make for international markets. For example, a pine nut soda for South Africa, a bitter lemon soda for England, etc. I wasn't really impressed by any of the sodas I tried, and a few were downright terrible. On the plus side, the gift shop has some pretty cool merchandise, none of which I actually bought.
Afterward, lunch at Burgers and More. Stephanie and I both had pretty good cheesesteaks. And in case you were confused where to find the water...
Then it was time to take Stephanie and Alfred to the airport. Sad to see them go. It definitely made it more fun to have them with me over the first part of this trip. I'm curious how the rest of it will go when I'm on my own.
Luckily, not on my own yet! Got back to the hotel (where Vivek has also been living for the past few months), and I found him in the exact same position he was in at 9 AM: in bed, TV on, lights off. We hit up the MLK Historical Site. Seemed a little lacking for a man of his stature, but still an important place to visit.
Then we ended up on a drinking tour of the outskirts of Atlanta. We wanted to go to the Movie Tavern, but decided to hit up a bar first in search of happy hour. We didn't find happy hour, but we did find Tucker's Saloon.
Remember how the interior of Dooky Chase didn't match the exterior? Well, that was not the case here. Tucker's was exactly what you'd think it was. A plain and simple Georgia hick bar. A few older white guys at the bar, NASCAR on the TV. Not exactly the place you'd think two Indians from California would be welcome. But everyone was actually really nice, especially this one guy who I think was named Lenny. He loved making gay jokes at the expense of one of the young bartenders. It reminded me of back home with Lenny playing the role of "everyone" and "Cupcake" playing the role of Amin.
Next stop was Blue Ribbon Grill to watch some NFL Draft, get some food, and of course, more beer. We had buffalo shrimp, which was really good, and some huge potato skins. The beer was IPA, which always makes me happy.
Finally, we reached the Movie Tavern. It looks much like your basic movie theater, with prices to match ($5.50 student ticket), BUT they have beer! And real food. As if that wasn't enough, you can order a mid-movie beer. They gave you one of those number things on a little stand. You walk into the theater, and there's a long table in front of each row of seats, making it look like a classroom. Midway through the movie, someone brings a beer right to your seat! I feel like I would go to this place every week if I lived here.
We watched Kick-Ass. I commented at one point that this might be the oddest movie I have ever seen (at least among mainstream movies). Despite, or maybe because of, that I thought it was totally sweet. Everyone should go see this movie.
Got some Crystal afterward, which seems to be the southern version of White Castle. It's better than White Castle, but that's not really saying much.
Long drive to DC tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment