Yesterday we decided to take the kids on a trip to Atlanta. Even though we live so close, we just don't go
down there much. We drive through it to go on other trips, but we rarely actually stop
and experience Atlanta, outside of
horrible traffic. Honestly, the traffic is what completely ruins Atlanta.
It's enough to make me not want to visit...ever. Not to mention once you get into the actual city, it's full of one-way streets and if you don't know it really well, you end up driving in circles trying to f
ind your way to the right direction to get to the place you need to be. I remember back in the day visiting Atlanta before I lived in Georgia and driving around seeing the building I wanted to go to, but not being able to get there because it was surrounded with one-way streets and we were going the wrong way. Anyways, today, we drove to Doraville, right at Spaghetti Junction (which is on the perimeter of Atlanta), and rode the Marta into Atlanta. We then walked over to the new Coke museum. The kids had never been on the Marta or to the Coke museum, so it was lots of fun. I told the kids that the Marta was a train that's mostly above ground but sometimes goes underground and goes fast and all that stuff. Drew had herself so excited about it that she was shaking when we got there. We also had to make a train switch to get off the north/south train and head to the east/west train. That was a tiny adventure in itself. Once we got there, we walked through Olympic Centennial Park where they were having some huge thing for diabetes, and it was filled with people and balloons and loud music, so that was neat for the kids, too. They've recently built a new Coke museum, so, even though I'd been to the
old one a bunch of times, I was pretty excited myself to see the new one. The first thing you do when you get there is watch this really cute movie about what supposedly happens when you put your quarter in a coke machine. Inside the machine is this imaginary world with all these strange creatures. It was one of those movies that's so cute and that the kids were so into that I almost cried watching them watch the movie. They really enjoyed it for the most part. The "milestones" section, which is a lot of the history of Coke was pretty boring for them, plus for some reason it was more crowded than the rest of the museum, so I could've lived without that myself. Crowded areas plus whiney kids makes me have anxiety attacks. But we left there and saw how Coke is bottled and then got to see another movie in 4D (the 4th dimension is feeling I
guess - they squirted water and cold air and the seats moved), and that was really neat. Then, of course, there were the decades of old commercials we got to watch. And then at the end there was all the Coke products from all over the world that we got to drink until we were sick. The kids are still talking about Beverly, the horrible drink from Italy. And, I was alive when Tab was around, but never actually drank it until yesterday -- Ugh!!! Who in their right mind drank that more than once? It was a lot of fun, and we got to take home a free bottle of Coke as a souvenier, which was nice because they force you to walk through the gift shop at the end, so the kids weren't as tempted to ask for things when we were leaving. We then ate lunch at the food court in the CNN center, and then headed back to the Marta. At the Marta
station, like all subways, once you pay and go through the gate, you can't leave unless you're done for the day or are willing to pay to get back in. Well, even though the kids went to the bathroom twice at lunch, their little bodies just couldn't handle all that carbonation and liquid. We got into the Marta station and Drew was about to explode...again. There was no bathroom anywhere. Then when we got to the station to make our switch, we couldn't find a bathroom there either. She was miserable, and I felt so bad for her. She couldn't even bear (or bare?) to sit down on the train. We had about a 15 minute trip from there, and thank goodness she made it. Back in Doraville we found a bathroom. Surprisingly, the kids fell asleep on the way home, even with all that caffiene and sugar in their systems.
down there much. We drive through it to go on other trips, but we rarely actually stop
and experience Atlanta, outside of 
horrible traffic. Honestly, the traffic is what completely ruins Atlanta.
It's enough to make me not want to visit...ever. Not to mention once you get into the actual city, it's full of one-way streets and if you don't know it really well, you end up driving in circles trying to f
ind your way to the right direction to get to the place you need to be. I remember back in the day visiting Atlanta before I lived in Georgia and driving around seeing the building I wanted to go to, but not being able to get there because it was surrounded with one-way streets and we were going the wrong way. Anyways, today, we drove to Doraville, right at Spaghetti Junction (which is on the perimeter of Atlanta), and rode the Marta into Atlanta. We then walked over to the new Coke museum. The kids had never been on the Marta or to the Coke museum, so it was lots of fun. I told the kids that the Marta was a train that's mostly above ground but sometimes goes underground and goes fast and all that stuff. Drew had herself so excited about it that she was shaking when we got there. We also had to make a train switch to get off the north/south train and head to the east/west train. That was a tiny adventure in itself. Once we got there, we walked through Olympic Centennial Park where they were having some huge thing for diabetes, and it was filled with people and balloons and loud music, so that was neat for the kids, too. They've recently built a new Coke museum, so, even though I'd been to the 
old one a bunch of times, I was pretty excited myself to see the new one. The first thing you do when you get there is watch this really cute movie about what supposedly happens when you put your quarter in a coke machine. Inside the machine is this imaginary world with all these strange creatures. It was one of those movies that's so cute and that the kids were so into that I almost cried watching them watch the movie. They really enjoyed it for the most part. The "milestones" section, which is a lot of the history of Coke was pretty boring for them, plus for some reason it was more crowded than the rest of the museum, so I could've lived without that myself. Crowded areas plus whiney kids makes me have anxiety attacks. But we left there and saw how Coke is bottled and then got to see another movie in 4D (the 4th dimension is feeling I 
guess - they squirted water and cold air and the seats moved), and that was really neat. Then, of course, there were the decades of old commercials we got to watch. And then at the end there was all the Coke products from all over the world that we got to drink until we were sick. The kids are still talking about Beverly, the horrible drink from Italy. And, I was alive when Tab was around, but never actually drank it until yesterday -- Ugh!!! Who in their right mind drank that more than once? It was a lot of fun, and we got to take home a free bottle of Coke as a souvenier, which was nice because they force you to walk through the gift shop at the end, so the kids weren't as tempted to ask for things when we were leaving. We then ate lunch at the food court in the CNN center, and then headed back to the Marta. At the Marta 
station, like all subways, once you pay and go through the gate, you can't leave unless you're done for the day or are willing to pay to get back in. Well, even though the kids went to the bathroom twice at lunch, their little bodies just couldn't handle all that carbonation and liquid. We got into the Marta station and Drew was about to explode...again. There was no bathroom anywhere. Then when we got to the station to make our switch, we couldn't find a bathroom there either. She was miserable, and I felt so bad for her. She couldn't even bear (or bare?) to sit down on the train. We had about a 15 minute trip from there, and thank goodness she made it. Back in Doraville we found a bathroom. Surprisingly, the kids fell asleep on the way home, even with all that caffiene and sugar in their systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment