Atlanta Trip

Coca Cola

After a 45 minute bus ride through downtown, where we passed interpretive murals, Georgia State University, and quite a variety of shops, we made it to the Coca Cola Headquarters. It's a three-story museum that has lots of cool historical information and artifacts. However, the second floor is the best, as it has the tasting rooms. The first tasting room is the standard products sold in the US -- Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta, and so on. The second room has about 20 flavors from all over the world, such as Mandarin Fanta sold in China, Lychee Mello from Thailand, and the unique, bitter flavor of the Italian Bitter Aperitif, Beverly.

 

Underground Atlanta

After we finished the World of Coca Cola tour, we waited in the plaza for everyone to gather. Underground Atlanta is just across the plaza from the World of Coke. It is a very unique shopping experience, with lots of shoppes and boutiques. Dinner was purchased on our own, and many roamed around the very interesting shops. Some of the many interesting sights are shown below.

 

At the Hotel

We finally arrived at the hotel, after Bus #3 took a wrong turn and took a rather scenic detour through Atlanta, causing Buses #1 and #2 to circle to attempt to find Bus #3. We all finally made it to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where the chaperones met with the room captains to pass out the keys, then with all the kids to go over the rules. The hotel was very nice. It had a lovely indoor/outdoor pool, which seemed to be the main gathering point for the evening's activities. Those kids that didn't swim were playing cards in the lobby, playing XBox in their rooms, or walking to the Wendy's, and McDonald's across the street.

The students were all in their rooms by the 11pm curfew, and since the day began at 5am at the school, a fair number of the rooms were already in bed with the lights out when the chaperones came by for the night's headcount.

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