Our plans for day 2 consisted of the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. The aquarium didn't open until 10AM so we took our leisurely time again that morning taking our breakfast back to the room and enjoying a relaxing morning with some TV and good eats. When the time came, we strapped on our walking shoes and headed out! The aquarium was about 5 blocks away from the hotel so we made it with just a few minutes to spare before they opened their doors.
Here is a picture of the waiting area. In the picture the fish look small and completely flat (2D) but they are NOT! I don't remember what species these were, but they reminded me of small albacore or something. It was an interesting display because all the fish had to swim right past the window, with seemingly little room to swim away from the window. Also, they were all swimming in the same direction. Perhaps the tank is a big circle with no room for fish to turn around. I saw on TV recently that tuna don't have the ability to force water through their gills to breathe so they must always be in motion. A pretty good idea to put these active fish in this tank! The best part was that every now and then the fish in one of the tanks would kick it into overdrive and they would all swim at about 5x the speed of the fish in the other tank. Those things could really get a move on!
Fortunately for us, this simple yet interesting display was only a TINY fraction of some very impressive things to come!
This aquarium is laid out in 6 different areas, all around a large common area. We got plenty of pictures and we will share our favorites here.
Seahorses
Little eel thing that lives in one hole its whole life
Jelly fish
Before I talk about our absolute favorite part of the building, we must explain the penguin exhibit! So they had a decent sized area for the penguins (maybe 20' x 60'), which included a tunnel that children and willing adults could crawl through. The tunnel lead to a couple bubbles that people can stand up in and be face to face with the penguins!
I would be remiss if I didn't share of the beluga whale exhibit! Naturally I sang the "baby beluga" song immediately! Haha!
They had 2 female and 2 male belugas that all loved to swim in circles and run their backs on the large curved glass closest to us. On a side note: there would be an employee that would hop on a microphone and explain things about the exhibits from time to time. The lady talking while we were there was particularly delicate when explaining how to tell the difference between the male and female whales... good work ma'am!
Ok, now for our favorite part!
Here is some interesting information about the aquarium (partly courtesy of Wikipedia)
The Georgia Aquarium was built in large part on a $250 MILLION donation from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus!
It consists of about 8.5 million gallons of fresh and marine water exhibits of more than 120,000 animals and 500 different species.
This aquarium is the only outside of Asia to house whale sharks, and this one has 4. In fact, this aquarium is built around their tank.
The whale sharks are housed in a 6.3 Million gallon tank! It is about 300' x 120' x 35'. Of course, what good would a tank that size be without a viewing window??? No worries, this aquarium has the second largest viewing window in the world!
It is made of acrylic, which is 17 times stronger than glass, and is 2 feet thick! The tank has skylights above it which, on a sunny day, allow spectacular light into the tank! A few highlights from this tank were the whale sharks, the 12' and 14' wide manta rays, hammerhead sharks, and 400lb groupers!
Here is a video and some of our best pictures of the huge viewing room
Once we had our fill of walking around the aquarium, we walked across the yard to the World of Coca-Cola. I won't spent too much time talking about or showing pictures of this place because I think we were both a little disappointed in it. I guess I was expecting more of a bottling plant operation, or more about how it is made. Instead we got essentially an hour-long commercial, with few details offered about the good stuff.
Definitely the highlight for us was the last room which is where visitors get to sample 60 different Coke products from all around the world! They were divided up into 5 different regions (Asia, Latin America, Africa, North America, & Europe) Some were yummy, many were awful. I guess there's a reason that Coke can be found in some 150+ countries... it's the good stuff!
By the time we had finished there, we had probably walked about a thousand miles in the last two days. Our feet were beat! So despite our half-hearted plans to do something else fun with our afternoon, our feet simply weren't up to the task. We had a recommendation from a friend of ours to try an authentic Napoli-style pizzeria. We thought that would be a good use of our time so out the door we went to a fun little place called Antico.
It doesn't look like much from the outside. Come to think of it, it doesn't look like much from the entrance either! You walk into a small room that has one large table and the counter with a cash register. We ordered a pizza and didn't really know what to do with ourselves! Turns out, you have to walk past the main table in the front and into the kitchen area! Well, the kitchen area actually had 6 more large tables, which partly face the 3 beautiful wood fired ovens and the prep area. On the sides of the room were the cold storage and massive stacks of large cans of San Marzano tomatoes. For those unfamiliar, San Marzano tomatoes are native to the area of Naples Italy. They are a fairly sweet plum tomato and make some of the most delicious sauce! The basic pizza is the margherita which is tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil. And when I say basil, I mean one of the cooks plucks some leaves off a fresh plant in their kitchen and puts it straight on the pizza. How's THAT for fresh ingredients!?
A quick few minutes in a very hot oven later, we had one of the most delicious pizzas of our lives! It was so much fun to eat great food and be able to watch the kitchen at the same time!! We filled up the car with gas in preparation for our trip home the next day, and back to the hotel we went!
Our plans for our last half-day in Atlanta included a thorough walk-through of IKEA!
I think it is a given that going to IKEA constitutes a good time. Partially for that reason, we didn't go through once...we didn't go through twice. THRICE we went through IKEA! I know I know, it sounds insane, but we were really motivated and had a reason for doing so. Online the night before, we found out that this store only had 1 computer chair in stock that we were wanting. So we stood at the door when it opened, and bee-lined it directly to the warehouse to see if the chair was still there. Victory for us! We got the only one in the warehouse!
With that purchase taken care of, and the chair locked away in the car, we returned for our slower, thorough walk through of the store. They have soooo much stuff there! Great ideas for kitchen setups, trendy living room furniture, and affordable cooking supplies. A few cutting boards, 3 little candles, and a $20 bathrobe later we hit the cafeteria for some Swedish meatballs to fill our stomachs before we hit the road. They were delicious as always and with a full car and appetites satisfied, we hit the road back to Nashville.
It was an excellent trip to Atlanta overall. We rode some great roller coasters, saw some amazing fish, and ate some yummy food for those 3 short days. It's always nice to get away from it all for a few days, something we haven't done very much since we've been here. We have now ventured away from Nashville in several directions, and we hope to do a bit more of this while we are still living down in the South.
That's all for now!
Until next time,
Love Tim & Heather
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