Our Atlanta Weekend

Our weekend in Atlanta was fun if not a little crazy. The worst part was traffic. I may have grown up in Georgia but I really have never spent much time in downtown Atlanta much less Buckhead so the trip was almost as new for me as it was for Graham. The traffic was a bit stressful as well but I think it was more the lack of familiarity with the area rather than the amount of traffic. We arrived at our swanky Buckhead hotel Saturday evening and pretty much crashed. Sunday morning we woke up late and ended up eating brunch instead of breakfast at the Bear Rock Cafe. It was overcast most of the day and rained a little but that kept the temperatures down which made the Zoo much more enjoyable. We spent about 4 hours at the zoo seeing all the animals and most of the bathrooms (Okay that was really just me :-P). After vegging in our room for a while we decided to be cheap for dinner and get everything to go so we wouldn't have to pay a tip. We went to the Cumberland Mall Cheesecake Factory as the one nearest our hotel only had valet parking and I have this issue with paying people to park my car when I can do it perfectly well. The restaurant was SO crowded and all we wanted was two slices of cheese cake boxed to go. This took 30 MINUTES however it was well worth it. I tried the pineapple upside down cheesecake while Graham got some coffee chocolate concoction which was also very good. For our main course we had decided to get pizza from the California Pizza Kitchen at Lenox. Graham had the number with us so we could order and pick it up on our way back to the hotel. He called and was told they closed at 6:30 (it was now 8). 6:30 seems awfully early to me to close but it was a Sunday. Since our dinner plans fell through we decided to get take out from Maggiano's (neither of us had eaten there) and it was conveniently located right next to the Cheescake Factory. Monday we woke up early to try to get the aquarium early but between traffic and breakfast we didn't get there until 9:45. My parents arrived around 8:45 since they weren't sure how bad traffic would be. I would say the aquarium was definitely worth the money but I have some advice for anyone planning a trip:

• Go on a weekday if at all possible
• Buy your tickets online in advance and for the earliest hour you can. If I went again I would get tickets for 8 am as it was so much easier to view the exhibits before it got really crowded.
  
• Check to see what items are prohibited inside. Graham had to run back to our car with our knives (yes I carry a keychain pocket knife) and my gum as neither are allowed. Also, even though they say no drinks you are allowed water.
• The restaurant had really decent food at prices that weren't bad considering they had a captive crowd. Buy the smallest cup size - it's free refills. Also, drinks aren't allowed in the exhibits but take a purse large enough to put the cup in and just dump it out when you are ready to go back into the exhibits. We did this and just refilled between exhibits.
• Go to the Ocean Explorer exhibit first. It's the biggest, most popular, and most impressive. I guarantee you'll want to spend quite a bit of time there just watching the fish in the HUGE, and I mean HUGE window.
• Park in the first parking garage on Alexander St. It's the same price as the aquarium parking and closer.
  

Well I think that's all. I do have a few pictures but not on this computer so I'll post those later.