Greetings from Savannah, Georgia on the eve of Independence Day. I'm sitting in our room, feeling a bit sorry for myself as I've got a bit of a dicky throat, which I initially thought was just a reaction to the air conditioning in our room in Atlanta and/or the flight over here, but I now think it's some kind of bug I've picked up. I'm dosing it with throat sprays and lozenges and hopefully it'll disappear soon - like the red marks on my legs from the bites I've had. Anithistamines, paracetomols and my usual array of drugs - I'm a walking chemical factory.
A feature of our visit to the south west has been the afternoon rain - some of it pretty heavy, with the worst yesterday - we had to take shelter in a multi-storey car park as the lightning and thunder crashed round about us and the water poured everywhere with the storm drains backing up, unable to cope with the huge deluge.
Anyway, in chronological order, here's the story so far. Flight over a little delayed, but otherwise OK. The seats in World Traveller Plus were fine for a daytime flight, but I'm not sure about the return overnight trip. Slow immigration clearance, but the taxi ride to our hotel was short and quick and we checked in, dumped our bags and went for a quick beer before bed.
Friday morning was a short stroll through the Olympic Centennial Park to Coca-Cola World, which was much more entertaining than it sounds. We managed to spend virtually the whole morning there without getting bored. Atlanta was the birthplace of the product and the locals are very proud of that fact. Jo said here best bit was the sampling of all the different Coke products from all round the world - each continent had a feature of maybe a dozen different drinks. I liked watching the old adverts - including probably the most famous I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing from 1971.
We had lunch at the Hard Rock on Peachtree - some translation problems - the waiter thought Jo said Red Bull when what she wanted was Rebel (IPA).
In the afternoon we went to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which was a bit of a harrowing experience, especially the bit where you sit at the lunch counter, shut your eyes and put the headphones on and hear - and feel - the sort of abuse that "coloreds" used to have to undergo in the South - in our lifetimes too. Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis, but, as a native of Atlanta, his funeral was held there and there are many memorials around the city.
In the afternoon we went to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which was a bit of a harrowing experience, especially the bit where you sit at the lunch counter, shut your eyes and put the headphones on and hear - and feel - the sort of abuse that "coloreds" used to have to undergo in the South - in our lifetimes too. Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis, but, as a native of Atlanta, his funeral was held there and there are many memorials around the city.
We had dinner at a nice brewpub - Max Lager's - in the evening. The plan on Saturday was to stretch our legs and walk to Piedmont Park and the Botanical Garden. It should have been about 3 miles there and the same back, but we couldn't find the Botanical Garden at first and must have walked at least 7 or 8 miles in the steamy heat. At least we had a nice brunch at the street market first of all:
On Sunday morning, we packed and took a cab back to the airport to pick up our hire car to take us on the 4-5 hour drive to Savannah. Fairly uneventful and not a lot to see - just miles and miles of tree-lined dual carriageways. We stopped at Subway somewhere to grab a sandwich lunch and also stopped at a place called Metter to use the facilities:
It was Sunday and it was a holiday weekend, so even the visitor centers/centres were closed.
We have a nice room at Springfield Suites and it seems everywhere in Savannah is walkable. Once yesterday's storm abated, we had a couple of beers - one at a Scottish pub (awful), and another couple at World of Beers, where we got chatting to a nice couple - Kyle and Kelly, I think? He was a "soccer" fan who follows Man Utd and, would you believe, Glasgow Rangers! We then walked down to River Street and chose a seafood restaurant for dinner.
This afternoon and evening have been a write off, spent in our room, but we went on one of the historical trolley tours this morning., taking in a short stroll along River St, where the paddle steamer was loading up:
Hope I'm feeling better for tomorrow's big celebrations.
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