“Mint Juleps are the Beverly of Cocktails”

We got up early this morning and took the shuttle from our hotel back to the airport and caught the MARTA (the metro) into the city.  It was virtually a ghost town, which was really confusing because I’d never seen a big city so dead.  The ticket guy at the station said a) it’s Sunday and b) there’s a football game in town.  It was strange.  MARTA is pretty efficient, and I like that the train cars are fairly big; we weren’t packed in like sweaty sardines in a can like on some lines of the Tube in London, but it also doesn’t come every 6 minutes like the Tube does.  Still, it got us to where we needed to go for fairly cheap, so that was awesome.

LONDON?! No? Where is everyone?

This station reminded me of one in London–Charing Cross, I think.  Look at all those stairs!  It’s like climbing a concrete mountain.

Our first stop was the World of Coca-Cola, which is an actual factory and we took an interesting tour and saw some pretty cool memorabilia, like this:

Clark Gable and Joan Crawford like Coke

At the end of the tour, there was a room with about 5 or 6 different kiosks that served Coca-Cola products from all over the globe.  Some of them were pretty good, others were really interesting, and some were really not very good.  We tasted a drink from Italy called “Beverly” which happened to be the most disgusting soda I’ve ever had in my life.  I can’t even decribe it, it tasted like some sort of medicine.  No thanks, “Beverly!”

We then made our way to Midtown MARTA station and took 10th street to the Margaret Mitchell Museum.  We had remembered reading somewhere that Margaret Mitchell called this house “the dump” because it was so small.  When we saw the outside we said, “Say what?  This house is big!” But it turns out MM and John Marsh only lived in the downstairs apartment which was 3 small rooms.  She called it “the dump” because she had grown up in a mansion.  Anyway, MM wrote most of Gone with the Wind in this house.  And isn’t it funny to think that she didn’t think anything of her book when she was writing it?  She didn’t think it any good.  WRONG, Margaret Mitchell!  Yours is the only novel I’ve ever read more than once (I’ve read it 3 times, actually).  So I think it was good!

Margaret Mitchell House & Museum

There was a small movie museum next door to the MM House that had the huge painting of Scarlett that was used in the film of GWTW.  It looks kind of scary but it was so cool!

It was used in the movie!

Autumn

Afterword, we walked up Peachtree Street and found the Georgian Terrace Hotel, where stars from GWTW stayed during the premier.  It was really posh inside, very fitting for Vivien Leigh, methinks, although did she stay in the governor’s mansion with Larry instead?  I got a chocolate/raspberry cupcake at Mims Cafe next door.  We were then accosted by a possible vagrant who “needed $2.15 to get a MARTA ticket because he just moved to Decatur and his friend left him stranded.”  I hope he enjoyed that ‘MARTA ticket.”

For dinner we headed over to the Pittypat’s Porch restaurant downtown.  It was pricey but we figured we had to try it.  I think I gained 10 lbs in that one sitting, there was so much food!  I got the salmon, which was really good.  We also decided we had to try mint juleps since none of us had ever had one/  I think we were expecting it to be a mojito but boy were we wrong.  It looked like dirty pond water with algae at the bottom.  And it tasted about the same.  The bourbon and mint were so strong.  Kasia forced herself to drink almost the whole thing, but it looked like quite a struggle.  I quit after 1/2 a glass. Oh! The ladies’ room at Pittypat’s was so cute!  It had a powder room and everything.

Mint juleps = Beverly...or pond water. Are those organisms swimming around in there?

We decided mint juleps are the “Beverly” of cocktails.    I tried to picture Scarlett O’Hara (if she were real) or even Vivien Leigh drinking mint juleps on the porch (or the balcony?) and had a hard time.  Although Vivien’s favorite drink was apparently a gin and tonic which I also don’t like very much because it’s so dry.  Oh, Alcohol.

Then we went into a food coma and decided to go back to the hotel.  The night ended with Tool Academy on VH1 and a program about monorails on the Travel Channel.

Tomorrow: Atlanta History Center, Jonesboro, and beyond!

 

~ by Kendra on November 9, 2009.