Atlanta - day one - tuesday

In preparation for walking around town, I had highlighted my destinations on a city
map and written the hours for each location. I even asked the guy at the hostel desk which streets were better for walking and gotten time estimates just to be sure it was walkable. It took me about twenty five minutes to walk there.

So I walked to the Georgia aquarium and was ready for the nine-o clock open, happy that there was only one other guy in sight, meaning the place wouldn't be crowded and I could enjoy it. Well really it doesn't open until 10. So I went over to Coca-cola across the green that opened at nine.

Coca-cola was interesting. The tour started with a short history of the advertising and the span and distribution of coke. They had a lot of memorabilia and posters in other languages. Next is an animated video about what happens when you put your quarters into the coke machine (how the coke is bottled, capped, and delivered with a fanfare parade to the slot) that was cute even though the characters were not. There was also a coke art gallery with paintings by Rockwell, Warhol, and other not so famous artists; a 4-D movie about the success of coke with its customers (which showed how coke is delivered in all sorts of countries - you know on the backs of elephants, floated down river, etc.)(i shouldn't watch 3D movies they make me sick); a room with the history of bottling bc originally coke was bottled independently and how the coke bottle with its unique-know-it-in-the-dark shape came to be; the coke bottling line in slow-motion so you could see the whole process of cleaning, drying, filling, capping; and the coke tasting room. The tasting room had more than seventy different coke products from around the world to try at your own leisure from the machines. My favorites were the two apple products from South America. They also had INCA COLA from Peru which is yellow and tastes like bubblegum - I didn't know it was a coke product. They had a whole section devoted to just coke and the flavors of coke - but they didn't have coke black which is the only one I wanted to try bc I actually hate the taste of coke (don't worry - no one at the facility knew it, otherwise I might have been kicked out). After all the caffeine and sugar, I quickly perused the giant gift shop and didn't find anything I thought mom needed and walked back across the green to the aquarium.

The line for the aquarium was long and wrapped around the building, but moved quickly as bags were searched. They did not do that great of a job considering I had an apple, a banana, and two liters of water - all prohibited. The aquarium was nice and big and new feeling with quality exhibits, but really really crowded and loud. There was a lot of space between aquarium windows so sometimes it had an empty feel - maybe room for more exhibits. This aquarium is now the biggest in the world and has the biggest tank (but I don't think it feels that big) bc of the tank for the whale sharks. The tank is pretty cool (who knows what shape it is) bc you see it from about four different angles and through the tube. The whale sharks are impressive in size and there are other interesting fish, sharks, and rays in the tank as well. And I found the wobbegong. I know the aquarium in Japan has whale sharks so I wanted to know where these came from. They are caught by Taiwanese fisherman, who usually harvest them to eat (but don't anymore bc they are more valuable for eco-tourism), and UPSed by plane to the Georgia Aquarium (yes it is true, I saw the video). The coral reef tank was cool bc it was huge and had a large diversity of fish and a lot of them. The belugas were hilarious bc they were courting and I kept watching to see if there was any action, but none for me to see. I was also disappointed in the gift shop bc it was mostly junk toys for kids and they had almost no books or videos.

Next I walked over to CNN which took a bit of doing bc several roads were blocked off as they were cleaning up and repairing buildings from the tornado damage from earlier in the week. So much had been cleaned up that I didn't really notice it until I looked up at the tall buildings and saw how many had boards for windows and fractured glass.

The CNN tour is very interesting, starting with a metal detector and bag check (like the previous two places), and a ride up the largest free-standing escalator in the world - seven stories. She told us this after we had ridden up it. We started by sitting in a theater and watching all the camera angles, what was actually on TV, and listening to the director tell the cameramen what to do - all live about the crane that fell in Miami. Next we went into a room with a desk and all the equipment where she explained how it worked - like the camera, teleprompter, the green screen used for weather, etc. Then we went into the viewing area for the newsroom - to see the reporters live, the writers, the editors, etc. There are HEAPS of people who work on making one section of CNN news. It was a pretty interesting tour.

Next I walked a long walk to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. There is a lot to see here that I didn't have time for, but I saw the highlights. They had biographical information - like both his parents hated segregation, and film segments of many of his speeches and protests. He was a powerful orator and was basically constantly traveling to march and speak all over the country against segregation. He was a firm believer in peaceful protesting and even flew to India to meet with Ghandi (who organized peaceful protesting in India against the British). He got sprayed with fire hoses (which are powerful enough to strip the bark off of trees) and went to jail several times. He even went to Europe to accept the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, even though he still wasn't seen as an equal citizen in the Southern US. He really is an amazing person and it is sad that his life was cut short. His work was carried on by his wife, Coretta Scott King and there was a separate exhibit on her. Their tombs are located here as well.

I had asked two different park rangers which was the best way to walk back to the hostel from where I was and they both gave me different answers. I opted for the straightest path and encountered no problems.