18
May
Atlanta and the quest for frozen custard
Similar to the trip to Chicago, work sent me to Atlanta at the beginning of the month for two meetings on two different days. That left me time to wander around before the afternoon meetings happened. I like the MARTA train system they have, it’s quick and convenient for getting down town. Downtown has some nice free maps available and a lot of people who look like they have nothing better to do than to lean against walls. They probably don’t.
Shortly after arriving downtown I walked by a shoe store and some shoes caught my eye. The sign said up to 50% off so I decided I would go back later. Off I wandered, to find a snow globe for Nicole and maybe some frozen custard. I found the snow globe but didn’t get it in case I ran across a better one later. Then my mom called randomly and hearing I was in Atlanta said I needed to check out the underground.
I found the underground, and it’s really neat to be walking on old restored street. The stores are mostly generic, but I found some replacement singing magnets and some good fudge.
The World of Coke was closed and the New World of Coke doesn’t open until later tis month so I went there at the exact wrong time for a Coke pilgrimage.
In Atlanta there is a lot of music played on speakers outside of businesses. Not to drive people away, just to have music. So when I exited the underground and walked by the big Coke sign and heard some jazz I didn’t think anything of it. Then as I kept walking it sounded not like it was from small speakers and it was really good, and then I was at a park where apparently on Wednesdays for lunch there are concerts. The performer was William Green. He would throw in things liek Birdland in the middle of a song or the Jefferson’s theme, saying it was to see if we were paying attention. Afterwards I went up to give him all my money $9. CDs were $10 but I didn’t care if I got one or not. I told him I appreciated the Birdland and I ended up with a CD. I want his current CD now. I recommend seeing him in person if you get the chance.
Anyway, back to the shoes… I got back to the shoe store and found one fo the pairs I liked and asked if they had my size. They didn’t but they had a close size so I tried that. It wasn’t right, but it was enough that I could tell that if it were in my size it would be the most comfortable shoes I had ever worn. Good thing they weren’t right though because they were $700. But with the sale I could get a second pair for free. The shoes are made by Fennix and one of the pairs I liked looked similar to these. The pictures of the ones I liked don’t seem to be available anymore which is a shame because the blue ones were great!
You might be wondering about the frozen custard. I’d only had it once before in 1996 or 1997 when I attended a friend’s wedding in Virginia Beach. It was the best frozen treat I’d ever had and was disappointed that it’s pretty much an east coast and mid-west thing. This was my chance to get some but it wasn’t just waiting for me out in the open. I told my co-worker about it and he decided he needed to try some. After the meeting, we were taken to a Korean food feast which was very good, but it was clear we weren’t going to get custard there. So when we got back to the hotel we looked up directions to a custard place, called to maek sure they were going to be open, and finally got frozen custard. It was just as good as I remembered. It was good enough that my co-worker suggested we come back the next day before heading to the airport (we did).
The second day the meeting was earlier but I had enough time to head back downtown and get Nicole the snow globe and experience the escalator where if you are going up and tilt your head at a 45 degree angle to match the tile it feels like you are just travelling horizontally.
Upon returning and telling Fish about the custard his response was “You can get that in San Jose!” And sure enough you can! You only get vanilla, chocolate on weekends, and it’s not quite as smooth as ther others I’ve had but it’s still great! We’ve been twice already. Now if only it were in Santa Cruz.
Atlanta as a whole? Everyone seemed nice there. Not just pleasant or polite, but nice. I think it’s funny that there is so much construction that the city slogan is “Everyday is an opening day.” As far as I can tell they close highway lanes every night just so they can re-open them in the morning.I don’t know that I’d want to live there, but I did enjoy my visit.