It all began with a call to my mother. No...it all began with a weather report. No...I think someone called and told me about a weather report. One way or the other, we'd heard it reported that Chicago was expected Armageddon: Snow throughout the weekend, beginning January 9 - our day of departure. The original itinerary had us leaving Chicago, from O'Hare (which is always a mistake) at 7pm to spend a very brief evening in Atlanta, before heading back to the airport the next morning for a flight into Barbados.
After hearing about the snow, and taking into account how fickle the weather service can be, especially in Chicago, I called my mother for some sage advice. I think we both landed on "pray for no snow" as the answer. Thankfully it didn't stop there. After a talk with my sister, my mother figured that since it was already snowing ridiculously in PA, where Stef is in college, and the storm was headed our way, it would be smart to try to get out of Chicago on the earliest flight possible. She called me back and then things got difficult.
We were flying out on Delta, due to a generous gift from my Uncle Richard, who has more frequent flier miles than he can use in two lifetimes, and so I called to find out how to get our flight changed. When I called they said you can call 3 hours before a flight you want to get on, on the day of, and it'll cost you $50 more dollars to change your flight if there's room. OK. So, for some reason I wound up calling back to double check the flight times that morning, since we figured the earlier the better, and now I got a different story. No, since our flight's eventual destination, regardless of the evening in between was Barbados, and since it wasn't a domestic flight...in end destination, we were not eligible for the $50 rate. It would cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $250...per person. I tried to reason with this guy, saying Altanta was domestic and they needed to promise to have us in Barbados by the end of the day on Saturday, at the latest if we couldn't get this flight cancelled. Oh, and by the by, according to these geniuses, their contact at O'Hare said, "We're not calling for any snow." Meanwhile, the weather stations and nightly news and preparing you for the storm of the year. But...don't worry...O'Hare's not calling for any snow. After many frustrating minutes of trying to reason with Delta, I finally took my wife's advice and called my Uncle to see what he could do. He, being amazing, came through for us not too long afterwards and we were to leave on a 7am flight.
After just about no sleep, we took a taxi at 4:15 A.M., driven by a man with some kind of palsy, who drive right by our house, right off our street, and off into the night, while I was on the phone with the taxi company trying to figure out why this guy was so late. We got to the airport just as it started snowing, and they put us on the 5:50 flight, because they were already starting to cancel flights later. Good Old O'Hare. A note to readers: ALWAYS FLY INTO MIDWAY. God knows what's wrong with this city that it seems like every winter it's caught unawares by the snow. If we lived in Florida, I could understand. But Chicago?
We arrive in Atlanta, take a shuttle to our hotel, relax for a minute and plan out the rest of the day. We decided to head back to the airport, hop on their metra system and go into town. Blair placed her status on facebook, and through her phone took suggestions for what to do during an unscheduled day in Hotlanta. Two answers came back: aquarium and the coca cola museum...oh, and the Varsity, which Blair's cousin, Ben, suggested...we'll get back to that.
We get into town, and on my mother's suggestion scope out Underground Atlanta. Useless. I don't know why I was thinking it would look more like an underground city, but it looked more like Navy Pier in Chicago, except a little bit dingier and less kid-friendly. We ate a very artery-angering meal in the food court, before heading off to find the aquarium.
The Atlanta Aquarium is supposed to be the largest Aquarium in the country. What they meant was that it houses the largest single standing tank in the country. Being such a huge fan of the Baltimore Aqaurium, I was skeptical that this could outdo it. In the end, though, I'm still sticking with Baltimore as a better aquarium, but the tank was pretty darn impressive. There is a long moving walkway that runs you under a tunnel set up inside the tank, which is just beautiful, especially when you see the whale sharks swim right over top of you. From the sharks, to the otters, to the ray petting zoo, it was an enjoyable experience, all in all. Here are some of the pictures.
After much debate, and a call in to James, who had been through the Coca-Cola Museum on a tour just the year prior, we decided that it would be a unique experience...and it was. After being brought into a room filled to the brim with Coca-Cola paraphernalia, we were escorted into a movie theater to watch a ridiculously uncomfortable animated tour through the inside of a Coca-Cola machine with the creepiest little characters your nightmares could conjure, being voiced by people who actually work inside the factory itself. It probably would've been better as just a documentary-style tour. Cree-py.
It was a pretty enjoyable time, but it was all worth it to finish the tour in the tasting room. In this room you can taste 60-something different cola-style beverages from around the world. How bad can this be? Let's take a look...
To be honest, I had a lot more fun than you see here. There were some great ginger ales with actual ginger in it, and some pretty decent stuff from Asia. The best, however, was the cola from Italy that everyone was trying to get people to try. I, being a people-truster, decided to give it a whirl, only to discover a taste unlike anything I've ever tasted before, and hopefully will taste since. Carbonated, soured urine? Maybe. One way or the other, it was repulsive, and yet, I went back for a second try, just to get the picture above.
After such a wonderful time, we decided to top it all off...on a tip from Ben, mind you...with a dinner at the famous Hotlanta Varsity. We're greeted with a nasal, half-hearted "Whaddya have?" from every direction, whereupon we realized that it was a fast-food style establishment with some of the most horrid food we've ever encountered. Let's just say that the cheese fries were enough to put people off cheese fries for good, and it inspired this picture:
Goodnight Hotlanta. Off to Barbados with us.
