It was my birthday over the weekend (Friday to be exact), and we packed up and headed into the big city for a weekend adventure. I must say that I have always been TERRIFIED!!! of big city driving. Petrified even. But armed with a new car that I trust to get me going and NOT break down and a Nuvi, I was at home driving the crazy. I managed to get everywhere we needed to be, and we never even got lost! We went the wrong way a few times because of traffic, but Nuvilou got us back on track with little effort. She was "recalculating" a lot this weekend!
We got the Atlanta CityPass that got us into all sorts of places like the Aquarium, the World of Coke, the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, the High Museum of Art, and the CNN Center. We skipped the last two because we just wanted to piddle around the neighborhood on Sunday.
The Aquarium was a lot of fun because our friend J had never been before. She wants to go back this summer when her son gets home (he's seven). What was cool was that the CityPass got us a ticket to the 3-d show and something called the Quick Dip Backstage pass. We gave a little family our tickets to the 3-d show, but the quick dip thing was AWESOME!!!! You get to go behind the exhibits and see things from a crazy different view. We got to see the top of the tank where the whale sharks are kept and they were so beautiful swimming so close to the top.
We went to the World O' Coke next and stood in line. Then we stood in another line. And after that, we got to stand in another line. Yeah. I wasn't feeling the world of Coke. I would NEVER pay $$ to go back in there. I would suggest just going over and shopping the gift shop from the back entrance and skipping the whole museum dealyo.
That afternoon we parked at the hotel (The Highland Inn - crappiest hotel I've ever paid over $120 a night for!), and we got the nuvi back out to see what food was near. We walked to the Vortex Bar and Grill because I had seen it on Man VS Food on the Travel Channel. I was stoked because I had wanted to go to this burger joint when I saw it on TV. If you are ever in the ATL, go by there and have a burger and fries. I got the black and blue burger (cajun blackened burger and blue cheeze spread).
And that's where the fun nearly stopped. While we were in the hotel recovering from the cows we had eaten, I got up off of the side of the bed closest to the wall. I was barefoot since I was relaxing, and I slammed my bare toes into an exposed pipe jutting up from the floor. This tripped me up and I went down face first over the bed, hit the radiator (old hotel, built in 1927), and slid down to the floor. D and J said it all happened in slow motion and that if we'd have had the camera out, we might be $200,000 richer...
After I started crying, they knew that the fall was not a pratfall and that I was indeed hurt. I finally pulled myself up into a sitting position to find my middle toe split open and bleeding. And it hurt like all get out! I was terribly upset because I was afraid the next day would be ruined because we had planned to walk the zoo and botanical gardens. I hobbled down to the front desk and the night guy shrugged it off after handing me a few tiny bandaides.
I tried to still have a good time that night, but the bar downstairs was 1)lame and 2) LAME and 3) OH SO LAME that I was bored to tears and packed into bed early.
The next day was much nicer than the previous night. We walked the zoo early and avoided many of the screaming kids by moving quickly (or as quickly as you can with a busted toe and flipflops because you hurt too bad to wear shoes). D and J kept losing me in the crowd, but I finally found them again. It was really funny to watch the animals since it was spring time- lots of babymaking on lots of animal minds.
The Botanical Gardens were SOOO cool. They had a display of orchids that was OUT OF THIS WORLD! It was called Towers of Flowers. I took sooooo many pictures of them that I think I could walk you through the whole exhibit.
We ended the day at Ikea. That store is crazy. We're going back to buy some new bookshelves. They are larger than the ones we were going to buy from Staples and about $40 cheaper. Hello new guestroom.
The day before we had found a shop next to the hotel that sold independent artist's stuff and J bought us an original painted that was very neat. The funny thing is that I had picked up a lot of postcards that were prints of paintings, and the original and the postcards were all by the same artist. We found out that the artist was having an opening on Saturday night. We went there (a bit too early) and bought up some new prints of her new work. We heart her stuff. Now we have new art to put in our hallway since we've been living with naked walls for months because we were tired of the old stuff.
Sunday was a lazy day. We got up and loaded up the car. We wanted to go back to a store we saw the day before, but it didn't open until 12. We went to a Whole Foods (this is why I'm going to move to ATL) and shopped while J went to a bookstore next door. We all wound up next door shopping for books, and then we could go back to the Junkman's Daughter (a crazy alt shop). I got a darwin fish for my car and D got a set of salt and pepper shakers (humping bunnies). We went back to the Vortex for lunch, and then walked around Little Five Points. There were some funky shops. We spent hours in Bang-On making custom tshirts. J made 2 for her kid and 2 for her. I did 1 for me with zoo animals.
We finally got home about 6 and crashed into the bed. I was dog tired, but I had a good time.
