I’m in Atlanta for the coming week but flew in a on Friday[1] and so am spending the w/end in the city. I’ve been here previously for 3 days, but that didn’t count since on that trip I didn’t see anything other than the office and the hotel.
This time around I’ve had two days to see a bit of Atlanta. My co-workers were eager to make suggestions for what I should see in my two days at leisure; the Coca Cola museum, the CNN experience and Stone Mountain. wtf. Touring large brands or visiting a family-themed pseudo-outdoor park? I don’t think so.
So instead I’ve decided to spend the two days essentially doing nothing; hanging around in the downtown area, perhaps going for a bit of a walk in some of the parks, look for some doo-dads to take home. When visiting a city for the first time I really only want to get a feeling for what it is like to live in it and there’s no more direct an experience of anywhere than to be a little bit lazy and a little bit bored on a Sunday morning.

On Saturday I went out to the midtown/downtown area around Piedmont Park and then to the bohemian not-a-tourist-trap neighbourhood of Little 5 Points[2]. Both a fantastic, old neighbourhoods with great Southern-style homes set back under towering trees in the sticky hot morning air. Atlanta is very much like Austin – downtown area is great; friendly, slightly scruffy, bikable and green; the suburbs[3] are horrors; vast, sterile and accesible only by car.

Little 5 Points

However, the real knockout of Atlanta[4] is the music/theatre/entertainment that is both generated within the city and that comes through town in a stead procession of world-class acts. I nearly puked when ticketmaster made it very clear that the Dave Chapelle show on Saturday nite was totally and violently sold out. If a website could tut-tut it would have. ‘You expect to get a seat to see Dave Chapelle perform in the home of Southern black emancipation[5]? Bwhahahahaha, uhm, sorry – no’.
What I did get a ticket for is the Black Crowes at Chastain Park Amphitheatre on Sunday nite. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain[6].

[1] in part due to flight availability, but also because I don’t fuck around with jet lag
[2] which, despite its genuine best efforts, is a bit tourist-trappy. It reminded me somewhat of Queen street in Toronto – just a little more kitsch. Yes, it seems that urban Canadians do have a more refined asthetic.
[3] where I stay(ed) and worked in both cases
[4] as should be expected of a world city
[5] being the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr.
[6] One of the nicest things the last few days has been the powerful evening thunderstorms and showers.