Day 2: Atlanta

Who knew that capitalism could be so incredibly cultish and creepy? More on that later.

Dave and I woke up at 11, and by 12:30, we were on our way to Soul Veg, an amazing independent vegan restaurant chain where we ate with Shannon Morrow in Chicago several years back. It being Sunday, they were offering a brunch buffet featuring tofu scramble, vegan sausage (so awesome), delicious steamed broccoli, yummy grits, veg bacon, biscuits, and pancakes. The pancakes were served with a honey/syrup mixture that was delightful. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

After our visit to the Soul Veg, we headed to *ahem* the World of Coke. On the way there, we passed this weird thing:



Did you KNOW there was a National Museum of Patriotism? After our creepy adventure at the laser show last night, we opted against yet another jingoistic free-for-all and instead in favor of a corporate rah-rah cult pep rally at the World of Coca-Cola.


We started in the lobby with the Coke bottles decorated for different countries.



We were ushered into another lobby where a guide tried to get us to show our enthusiasm for Coca-Cola. I don't know if it was the hot weather outside or the cynicism of the whole thing, but our group just was NOT feeling this weird rally effort. The guide then asked us to raise our hands when we heard her call out our favorite Coca-Cola product. Are you serious? She went through a disturbingly long list of Coke products (Hi-C, Minute Maid, Barq's, Caribou Coffee, Dasani, Five Alive, Squirt). The list went on and on. I was the only person bold enough to cheer for TaB when she called it out, but I would never put that crap in my body.

We were then ushered into a theater where we watched this creepy "documentary" called "Welcome to the Happiness Factory!"


It was a 15-minute computer-animated film of people talking about how great working for Coca-Cola is. Wow. "It's like a family." Is it, now? Really?

The minute we were set free, we headed for the tasting room. In the tasting room, there were five free-standing, round drink stations. Each one involved a different continent: Latin America, Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe. Each station had banks of soda dispensers like the one pictured here:


You go from station to station with your little cup tasting all the sodas. The best one, in my opinion, was "Stoney Tangawizi" below. It was almost exactly like Blenheim's Ginger Ale. Delicious!


The worst one, by far, was nasty "Beverly," shown below, from Italy.


Everyone I saw who tasted it either spat it back out or gagged a bit. I'm not even sure what it's supposed to taste like. It was awful.

We must have tested 35 different sodas in the space of about 15 minutes. Imagine all of that sugar going into one's system all at once. I nearly barfed. We looked briefly at the slow-mo bottling factory. It turns out 20 bottles a minute rather than the 2,200 a minute the real bottlers produce. It was pretty neat, but we wanted to see how one might CAN a soda.

We stopped on one little landing on the staircase to look down at the photographer taking pictures of tourists with Coca-Cola's "must beloved mascot," the polar bear. We watched for a second and realized that the person in the suit was operating the animatronic head with one hand. Check it out.

As with most museums, we were escorted out through the gift shop, where we were each given a souvenir bottle of Coke.


From there, we went on to the Georgia Aquarium next door. We saw lots of wacky things:

Whale sharks,


Hammerhead sharks, razor sharks, sand tiger sharks, weird rays of all kinds,


Spider crabs,


Jellyfish,



Alligators,


Weirdos,



and river cooters (Dave’s faves).


After the aquarium, we headed across the street to Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. It was a lovely, flat greenspace with little to offer. It had a replica of the Olympic torch from 1996, as well as some weird engravings in the sidewalk to represent different sports.




The coup de grace of the day, however, was our drive past the Sandy Spring Public Library, which features the three statues below, a piece of public art called “Three Army Men.” What these photos don’t show is that it looks like the Army men are getting ready to storm the library. What the hell?



After that, we went to an AWESOME Mexican restaurant called El Taco Veloz (The Speedy Taco). It was awesome! Spicy bean burrito, hot guac, delicious horchata. I loved it.

After eating that insane meal, we came home to rest with Doofus, the recently shaven-for-his-own-good cat.


Tomorrow, it's a bit more Atlanta, and then we're off to Memphis to see Graceland!