Not so Hotlanta....
I love Atlanta. I hadn't made it five minutes out of my hotel and some kid was already hitting me up for drug money. Are you for real? I was up at 5am. I was in a completely different country. I was at the airport by 7am. At 9.45 I was in the air on a nine-hour flight to Miami. I then spent two hours passing through immigration, customs and baggage reclaim. Then another two-hour flight to Atlanta, and another hour to get the MARTA, all the while dragging a 23kg suitcase, a poster tube, a Crumpler shoulder bag, a carrier bag, and my winter coat. The last thing I feel like doing is giving you drug money.....
On the upside, I also got hollered at by some girl in a black SUV - a new, yet strangely empowering experience for me. "You lookin' good t'day!" And given that I'd spent the past 25 hours on trains, planes and automobiles, and generally felt like I'd been run over by a train, I was more than happy to take that as a compliment.
And speaking of planes. By all accounts, American Airlines has quite a funky personal entertainment system, with on-screen, touch-sensitive menus that let passengers control everything other than that screaming kid on the centre aisle. As plane food goes, it was pretty passable, consisting of beef stew, gnocchi and spinach. The same can't be said for the stuff they pass off as coffee, however. Although to their credit, other than calling it coffee, they're actually quite clear about what they're serving you. After all, it doesn't look like coffee, it doesn't smell like coffee, so why the hell should it taste like coffee?
Then there was the two-hour stopover at Miami, the only pleasant part of which was.... well, actually, there was nothing pleasant about it. Unless you like waiting in line for an hour to have your picture and prints taken, picking up your luggage and giving it back at the other end of the room, then lining up another 30 minutes to take your shoes off, take the laptop out of your bag, take your belt off etc.
Fortunately, after all that, my hotel room is absurd. It has two queen size beds, a kitchen with fridge/freezer, microwave, electric stove and oven and dishwasher, a laundry room with washer/dryer and ironing board.... of course, it's all kind of pointless, because you have to pay extra for flatware, cutlery and cooking utensils. Plus, where the heck in Midtown am I gonna find a grocery store......? So the hotel restaurant is thus to be commended: crispy eggplant stack with clementine and sweet red pepper salad, and beef short ribs with gnocchi (I was curious to see how it would compare to the AA version....). I'd have taken pictures, but these fancy restaurants seem to make a point of dimming the lights as low as possible so you can't see what you're eating.
My fight against jetlag continues....
On the upside, I also got hollered at by some girl in a black SUV - a new, yet strangely empowering experience for me. "You lookin' good t'day!" And given that I'd spent the past 25 hours on trains, planes and automobiles, and generally felt like I'd been run over by a train, I was more than happy to take that as a compliment.
And speaking of planes. By all accounts, American Airlines has quite a funky personal entertainment system, with on-screen, touch-sensitive menus that let passengers control everything other than that screaming kid on the centre aisle. As plane food goes, it was pretty passable, consisting of beef stew, gnocchi and spinach. The same can't be said for the stuff they pass off as coffee, however. Although to their credit, other than calling it coffee, they're actually quite clear about what they're serving you. After all, it doesn't look like coffee, it doesn't smell like coffee, so why the hell should it taste like coffee?
Then there was the two-hour stopover at Miami, the only pleasant part of which was.... well, actually, there was nothing pleasant about it. Unless you like waiting in line for an hour to have your picture and prints taken, picking up your luggage and giving it back at the other end of the room, then lining up another 30 minutes to take your shoes off, take the laptop out of your bag, take your belt off etc.
Fortunately, after all that, my hotel room is absurd. It has two queen size beds, a kitchen with fridge/freezer, microwave, electric stove and oven and dishwasher, a laundry room with washer/dryer and ironing board.... of course, it's all kind of pointless, because you have to pay extra for flatware, cutlery and cooking utensils. Plus, where the heck in Midtown am I gonna find a grocery store......? So the hotel restaurant is thus to be commended: crispy eggplant stack with clementine and sweet red pepper salad, and beef short ribs with gnocchi (I was curious to see how it would compare to the AA version....). I'd have taken pictures, but these fancy restaurants seem to make a point of dimming the lights as low as possible so you can't see what you're eating.
My fight against jetlag continues....
posted by CCT at 11:01 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home