Atlanta, GA

This is Lindsey reporting live from I-65S. We are headed to New Orleans and making great time. We also changed time zones and gained an hour which was pretty cool! Atlanta was a ton of rainy fun. It rained from the minute we got there until the minute we fell asleep (at the extremely late hour of 11pm) so we opted for indoor activities, which is something we haven’t done much of on this trip…unless you consider eating an indoor activity, in which case we should have won a gold medal by now and are assuming our award got lost in the mail since no one really knows where we are at any given time.

On the way to Atlanta, after realizing we were driving straight into rain, we brainstormed a list of things to do that would keep us dry and entertained. Options included eating, shopping, visiting the aquarium, or spending a couple hours at the World of Coca Cola. Shopping was nixed right away because neither of us are positive we’re 100% female and we were still full from breakfast so eating was quickly decided against. After weighing the pros and cons of the aquarium vs. coke we decided that there was no guarantee we’d stay dry at the aquarium (hi splash zone) and we didn’t want to spend a small fortune to look at fish all day, so we bought tickets to the 5pm tour at the coke factory and prepared ourselves for an exciting afternoon of carbonated beverages and lots of burping. We made great time on the road and even called the coke factory to switch to an earlier tour, but the joke was on us when we showed up ready to drink our weight in bubbly goodness and instead had to wait an entire hour in a line that extended around the side of the building. Not cool coke world! Luckily, we were able to stay entertained by multiple cute babies in line ahead of us. There was also a screen showing Coke commercials from around the world, but after watching the same five commercials three times in a row we quickly lost interest. If any of you know the president of the World of Coca Cola please direct him to this blog so he can read our suggestions – play more commercials and install more than one single metal detector. Your line is boring to wait in and takes forever to get through.

After Nikki picked off most of her nail polish and I fell asleep standing up multiple times, we finally made it inside! Our first order of business was the bathroom. Mr. President, if you’re still reading this here’s another suggestion – your lobby bathroom needs more than three stalls. I don’t know what women do in the bathroom because, like I said, my gender is sometimes questionable, but I do know that they take a long freaking time and waiting in line to pee really sucks.

We were quickly welcomed into the ~*Coca Cola Loft*~ (aka “a room full of old Coke memorabilia from the 1900s and Korea” as described by Nikki) and listened to some lady named Cookie talk about the history of the company for approximately 30 seconds before we got bored and stopped listening / started texting. Luckily, that didn't last too long and we were moved into a movie theater where we watched the NEW Coca Cola polar bears movie. We were excited and thought this was a pre-screening for a new full-length film, but it turned out to be a five minute short that you can watch for free online. We do recommend watching it, but we don’t recommend traveling all the way to Atlanta to watch it on a bigger screen than your laptop. After the movie we were released into the rest of the exhibits like a pack of shoppers on black Friday. I kid you not, I’m almost positive someone got trampled. I guess people really want to take pictures with the scary polar bear and will stop at nothing to achieve this goal.

We opted out of picture taking and instead went straight to the vault where the super secret Coca Cola formula is allegedly locked. I for one think that’s a load of crap and they just use this to attract sorry saps to their exhibit, but while there we figured we might as well check it out. The vault was exactly what you’d expect it to be – a fake looking safe with a hand scanner and keypad. Not a chance that something as sacred as the formula is locked there. I’d be surprised if the vault even opened at all. If anything  is locked in there, it’s probably the bodies of past Coca Cola workers who have disclosed the formula to their friends.

After the vault we walked through a couple exhibits that had cool historical artifacts (shout out to the American Idol 2004 red room couch. We sat on it and I sang Kelly Clarkson’s A Moment Like This in my head while subconsciously pretending to be interviewed by Ryan Seacrest) and then made our way to a 4D movie extravaganza. The 4D movie was everything you’d expect it to be, and we got splashed with water on three separate occasions because for some reason that’s the only trick 4D movie producers know how to use. We also got stung by virtual bees which kind of hurt and I for one will never be returning to this movie theater. At this point we decided we probably should have opted for the aquarium, because at least they give you ponchos in the splash zone.

Finally, the moment none of you have been waiting for – THE COCA COLA SAMPLING ROOM aka a room with 60 different Coke products from around the world. We sampled approximately 52.5 (one was so bad we had to spit it out) and even got to try Coke’s new holiday gingerbread soda that is ~*exclusive*~ to Coca Cola World visitors. We signed waivers and are not at liberty to disclose information about the soda, but it was delicious and you missed out by not joining us in Atlanta. Just kidding about the waivers and the delicious soda – it was kind of bad and Nikki spilled hers out in the trash after one sip.

After filling up on soda, we grabbed our free collector Coke bottles, hit the gift shop, bought way too much tacky shit, and made our way to dinner at Richard Blais’ Flip Burger Boutique. For those of you who have lives and don’t spend time watching bad TV, Richard Blais was a contestant on Top Chef. I for one love that show and was especially excited to dine at his restaurant, and Nikki says, “I don’t watch it because it’s not on Food Network and I don’t know any other channel numbers, if we’re being honest, but I’m sure if I could figure out what channel it was on I would like it.” On the show Richard’s thing was using liquid nitrogen for ice cream. I almost failed the one semester of chemistry I took so I’m not sure exactly what this means, but we ordered Krispy Kreme and burnt marshmallow Nutella liquid nitrogen milkshakes and they were delicious. Nikki was specifically instructed to wait until hers stopped smoking before she could drink it. Again, no idea what the science behind this is but I’m thankful she waited because I do not want to know what those consequences would be. I ordered a standard cheeseburger complete with swiss cheese, pickled onions, lettuce, tomato, and something called B&B pickles (which I later learned stands for bread and butter but that doesn’t matter because I don’t eat pickles and took them off as soon as my burger arrived). Nikki ordered a slider trio with fried chicken, beef, and brisket sliders. “I can’t pick a favorite. It’s like picking a favorite child,” she says, although I suspect that every parent secretly has a favorite child and thus Nikki must have a favorite slider. We also ordered a side sampler consisting of onion rings, fries, and sweet potato tots. I for one would like to pick a least favorite child, as the sweet potato tots did not do it for me and we only ate a few of them. Another quality quote from Nikki: “I would have eaten them but the shake did me in….as did the fries and the onion rings and the three burgers”. Overall, it was a great meal and we left the restaurant swearing we would never eat again.

Luckily, that changed when our lovely host, Melissa (hi Melissa hope you’re reading this!) took us to Bagelicious this morning. We’ve been eating a lot of heavy breakfasts on this trip, so bagels were a nice change of pace. Nikki got an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and lox, and I got an onion bagel with something called “sclox” spread. It was supposed to be scallions and lox spread but I’m pretty sure it was just scallion cream cheese with some pink food dye in it because there’s not a chance salmon was mixed into it. Regardless, it was a great breakfast and the perfect thing to tie us over until snack time which ended up being cookies purchased and eaten 30 seconds after we left the restaurant.

We are now two hours away from New Orleans and can’t wait to see what the city has in store for us. I suspect a lot of good food, but when has that never not been the case on this trip?

*drops mic*

 (please note: there is no picture of us outside of Flip due to the fact that it was pouring and we did not want to ruin our phones and our dignity trying to take a selfie in the rain)

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