Thursday 19 November 2009

Atlanta













Our stay in Atlanta was short lived and lasted barely 36 hours. When we woke up in the morning we noticed that Lucy had a few spots on her belly. Fearing chicken pox we called a doctor who confirmed this diagnosis (now though we are unsure what she had, it may have been some other virus). The doctor said she was contagious if anyone touched her. We decided to cut the vacation short and go home but given our 7 hours in the car the day before we wanted to wait a day before the 7 hour journey home.













We saw 3 of Atlanta's top tourist sites and spent most of the time telling Lucy not to touch anything. First up was the Aquarium, the biggest in the US. It was pretty spectacular in terms of both the array of animals and the creative displays. It was also pretty pricey at US$31.50 per adult. Lucy was super excited to see a hammerhead shark (her favourite kind!), the penguins and the jellyfish. We experienced a 4D show which did not go down well with Lucy because we were sprayed with water.

The next attraction was the Coca Cola musuem. I asked Lucy if she wanted to drink coca cola and she excitedly said yes! 10 seconds later she asked 'what's coca cola?' An hour later she didn't need to ask the question anymore. I learnt more about coke than I ever needed to know. I saw ads, pop art and had my photo taken with the polar bear. It was consumerism to the max. The museum even asked us to record 'a special moment in our lives' with coca cola. I'm sorry but the major milestones in my life are not marked by drinking coke! In any case we actually had a really fun time trying the 60 types of coke product from around the world. My favourite was the apple and kiwi fanta from Thailand. Poor diabetic Andrew was restricted to small sips of his previously favourite beverage.

The final destination was Atlanta Zoo. Listed on our tickets as closing at 5:30pm we arrived at 4:15pm and expected to see most of it. Unfortunately what they don't tell you is that they start putting the animals inside at 4:30pm and the whole place closes at 5pm. So we had a quick spin around to see the pandas, complained to management (got free tickets and gave them away) and went home.

We ended the day with a room service dinner. Not your ordinary room service dinner mind you. The hotel we stayed at housed a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse so we had an awesome dinner squeezed between the travel cot, Lucy's fold out bed and several bags.

Hilton and Expedia were kind to us and refunded our unused hotel costs. And we didn't even need to threaten them with letting Lucy loose in the hotel.

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