Georgia On My Mind (Part 2)
I can’t believe it’s fall already! I’m going to take us on a journey back to the beginning of May, when we were in Atlanta and I was learning how to be flexible. Enjoy!
As we were leaving Hilton Head and making our way to Atlanta, we received the news that my beautiful baby nephew, Bennett was born. Did I cry? Yes. Did I call my brother and try to talk to him while he was frantically trying to make the baby stop crying? Also yes. Thankfully, my family was great about sending pictures and FaceTiming so I got a glimpse of life with Bennett until we’d be home around Memorial Day for a visit.
This marks the part of the trip when we started to realize we need more time in each city. Atlanta is so big and there’s so much to see but we only stayed there for a few days from May 3-6. My FOMO brain had to finally come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t get to see everything that I wanted to see in the short time we were there. We got there late on a Tuesday so we didn’t do anything but sleep on the first day, and basically only had 3 days there.
We stayed in a great place that we found while looking for alternatives to AirBnb, called Sonder. It seemed to me that this was a “luxury apartment” built in the last 5-10 years or so that they couldn’t get tenants to fill because they like to stick the word luxury in front of a quickly-made building and add stainless steel appliances and charge twice as much as they’re worth. But ANYWAY! This company now owns the apartments and rents them out to people for short- or long-term stays for pretty cheap. Ours had a beautiful view of the pencil building on our balcony and I was in love. We loved our stay at Sonder—we had free parking in a garage, digital check-in and a mobile key, and all the amenities of a typical AirBnb but in a nice apartment complex.
We got lots of recommendations for places to go and things to do in Atlanta and decided to prioritize them by neighborhood and likelihood that we would be able to fit them in around our work schedules. This, dear reader, was a test of my patience, and continued to be throughout the trip. I want to do it all. But it’s just not possible.
We spent our first day working at a coffee shop called Condesa Coffee—it was cute and had outlets and wifi, which are always appreciated. We didn’t know at the time that it was one of the only cafes within walking distance they had all of these things. And I, the Queen of FOMO, refuse to eat or drink at the same place twice while in a new city. It’s just the principle of the thing. We made our way to Krog Street Market, which was a very cute place with lots of lunch options (highly recommend!) but no outlets for working and arguably too far to walk to in the Atlanta heat with a 10-pound, 10-year-old MacBook Pro on your back. You can imagine the scene: hot, hungry, tired, Maggie walking around looking for a place to plug in her heavy-ass laptop that can’t hold a charge and get some damn meatless food. Let’s just say that I’m grateful I have a patient partner ☺️ (thanks, James).
After our adventures we found a little cafe to finish our workday from and then walked (with my heavy backpack) along the Beltline and narrowly escaped a downpour by taking shelter underneath a bridge. Not the best start to Atlanta but I LIKE THIS CITY DAMMIT, I just feel it in my bones. We stopped for dinner at a place along our walk and it was pretty good, but mostly I just wanted to sit down. Then we did (you guessed it!) some more walking and found some cool bars that were recommended to us. My favorite was Vortex—we didn’t eat there but had some fun drinks (thanks for the rec, Madison!).
We decided to take an Uber back to the place so I wouldn’t have a mental breakdown and our driver asked us if we were going to a Mexican restaurant on Thursday for Cinco De Mayo. We hadn’t thought about doing that, actually, and it was decided then and there that we would do that tomorrow.
The next morning we took a lovely stroll through Piedmont Park before work, sans backpack and wearing appropriate walking attire. It was a gorgeous slice of nature in the city and I loved it. It’s like the Central Park of Atlanta. After a resurgence in 2020 with nothing to do but go on walks, James and I are once again hooked on the 2016 phenomenon Pokémon GO. Piedmont Park proved to be a great place to play and also look at dogs.
Of course, we had to find a new coffee shop to work from in a different neighborhood for the next day of work. We landed at Dancing Goats Coffee, knowing we wanted to go to Ponce City Market for lunch. The market exceeded our expectations and we ended up staying there for the rest of the day to work. This is definitely a must-see for Atlanta. You’ve probably seen food halls and public markets but this one is one of my favorites!
James also got his first haircut on the road. It’s not easy to pick a hairstylist in an area you aren’t familiar with but his haircut turned out great! I usually let my hair grow until I can get back home to see my stylist, Molly, but I cut my own bangs in between visits. That’s definitely a detail we didn’t think about before life on the road! Maybe I need to make a blog post about all the weird things we didn’t think about before packing up our lives and driving around the country… someday. Since I’m now 4 months behind on travel updates, we’ll see how that goes.
After our work day, we tried to go to a Mexican restaurant for Cinco De Mayo. This was a mistake. We waited in line for 20 minutes and then got to the front and discovered that the restaurant was doing a festival with a limited menu, so it was crowded and they probably didn’t have a bunch of vegetarian or pescatarian options for us. So we did some more (you guessed it!) walking! And ended up deciding on a vegan pizza place after I had a bit of a hangry fit (sorry, James!).
The next day, we chose between the Coca-Cola Museum and the Georgia Aquarium. It was a tough decision but we decided on the aquarium because it opened earlier and we could fit it in before starting the work day. It was a pretty cool aquarium and we made it through most of the place before swarms of school field trips arrived. We enjoyed a walk through Centennial Olympic Park, found a lovely little coffee shop to work from, and then ended the day with some beer, food, and games at Biggerstaff Brewing Co. I definitely still wish we went to the Coca-Cola Museum (there’s that FOMO again) but I’m determined to go back sometime and see it.
After dinner, we did a little Thirsty Thursday bar hopping. We went to Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium—another one of Madison’s recommendations—and it was probably my favorite thing. Wildly inappropriate but absolutely hilarious if you can handle a little crude humor. One side of the building has a neon sign that reads “BAR (it’s a church)” and the other side has one that reads “CHURCH (it’s a bar).” They have church organ karaoke on Wednesdays (really sad we were a day late for that), religious art with funny quotes painted over them, ping pong tables and dart boards. There was something new to discover on every corner of every wall of its two stories and three separate bars. Probably not a place to take your grandma but we had a great time. We also hit up an arcade bar and had a really fun night! NOW I was starting to see how much I liked Atlanta. Just needed to stop walking around in the heat so much, I think.
Our final day in Atlanta, we made sure to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park. Some of the buildings were still closed due to covid but we did a self-guided tour of the park and museum. This is definitely a must-see if you’re visiting Atlanta. Coretta Scott King and the National Park Service did a great job of preserving the area that the King family lived and creating exhibitions with education on racism, civil rights, and non-violence. You can see Dr. King’s birth home, the church that he preached at, the original fire station in his neighborhood, the tomb of Dr. MLK Jr. and Coretta Scott King, and the World Peace Rose Garden. We spent all morning there taking it all in. It was a sobering experience and a great reminder that we still have a long way to go for progress in racial justice and equity. The park really tied together the need to continue the work. I especially loved the World Peace Rose Garden, which displayed poems written by school-aged children, and brought me to tears. It felt really timely that we were visiting shortly after my nephew was born—a reminder that we can instill Dr. MLK’s values in our children and help them make the world a better place. I’d definitely come back and visit the park again and think that anyone who goes to Atlanta would enjoy a visit there. I’d recommend planning to spend a good majority of the day there and make sure to wear comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing as some of it is outside.
All in all, I’d say that Atlanta was a great city that I would like to spend some more time in. I will definitely be back! Maybe next time I’ll take advantage of the public transportation instead of walking around in the summer heat. I don’t know if I could see myself living there or not. It’s certainly not off the table but I’m not sure if the south is right for us. Time will tell!
