April 29 -- Atlanta

I awoke this morning to a wake up call from Zack’s great uncle (Orman), realizing that we were running late. Luckily, he called us early, so we were able to get ready and make it to breakfast with Zack’s relatives (Orman and Frances) only a few minutes after we were planning on being there. After a short ride, we made it to mid-town Atlanta to have breakfast at The Flying Biscuit.

While there were no biscuits whizzing over our heads, we did enjoy a tasty breakfast of raspberry French toast, eggs, biscuits, sausage, and grits. Following a good after-meal talk, we headed over to one of the main attractions of Atlanta—the Georgia Aquarium.

Being the world’s largest aquarium, we had plenty to do over the time we were there. We walked through the various exhibits looking at extravagant species found throughout the world. Near the beginning of our trip, we saw fish such as garden eels, a strange creature that for most of its life only pokes its head out of its burrow to eat, looking similar to an underwater blade of grass. Shortly after, we walked upon a massive tank (containing 6.3 million gallons of water), containing thousands of different types of fish. One of the most prominent of these was the whale shark, the largest fish species in the world.


From the various places we could look into the tank (including a long tunnel on of side), we watched as whale sharks, manta rays, and various other shark/fish species swam around us.

It was truly a spectacular view. In other parts of the aquarium, we saw things like penguins, beluga whales, and jellyfish. As well, there were various opened fish tanks containing safe to touch species. Zack and I both had the opportunity to touch the various creatures (even including a hammer-head shark!).
                                               
Once we had seen the hundreds of species featured at the aquarium, we decided to move on to other parts of the town.

The next attraction was called the Cyclorama, an exhibit based on the Battle of Atlanta. Oddly, it was placed square next to the Atlanta Zoo (which we found out the reasoning for later). Upon arriving inside, we were told that a show was about to start, so we rushed inside just in time to watch a movie about the Battle of Atlanta. Following the movie, we walked up the stairs and sat down on a large, amphitheater style platform.

In front of us was what turned out to be the largest oil painting in the world, covering about 15,000 sq. feet. In the late 1800s, the painting was commissioned for about $43,000, but the man who paid for the painting died before it was finished. It was then sold to a circus, which later went bankrupt. Finally, the painting was sold for a little over $1000, along with all the circus animals (after being placed in their final locations, the animals soon became the beginning of the zoo, while the painting was transformed into the Cyclorama).  I would show you some of it, but no photography was allowed inside the Cyclorama.

To see the painting in full, the lights were turned off, and the platform we were on began rotating slowly. As it rotated, a narrator described the painting, with the aid of spotlights to help point out important details of the artwork. After we saw the painting in full for two rotations, we walked out of the main exhibit to see some various civil war items that were used during the war.

Following this exhibit, Orman, Frances, Zack and I all met with another of Zack’s relatives, Lewis, to have lunch at a retro pizzeria, The Mellow Mushroom. Sharing a large supreme pizza, we each filled ourselves cheerfully. Afterwards, we returned to Lewis’s home, where we played two close games of scrabble, a few games of customized scrabble slam (a card game version where only four letter words are used; while playing this we accidentally learned "hake" and "bast" were words, much to the joy of Frances and I), and shared stories about life with one another. In closing tonight’s blog, I want to give a very big thank you to Orman, Francis, and Lewis, who all showed us great hospitality and kindness to us on our time here in Atlanta.




Interesting Observations:
-So far, Atlanta has had the most impressive skyline of the cities Zack and I have visited. One of the buildings (as we commented to each other) looked a lot like the Empire State Building. We later found out that a nickname for Georgia is the “Empire State of the South” (referring to the actual Empire State Building in New York).


-Yellow and red fire hydrants seem to be somewhat of a rarity in GA. We've only seen silver painted ones thus far here in Atlanta.