Vousavec

The most gorgeous place – beautiful architecture and very nice people. A starving artist’s dream. And that was when I was 12. Imagine what I would say seeing it now.

A post office, a few houses, rentable condos that are nice, but not skyrises and a drive-up liquor shack are all that exist out here – and I mean there is NOTHING else here. The frogs at night are AMAZING. It is soooooo loud. I love it. But not just the frogs, during August, I think it is, is scallop season. Everyone brings their boat, snorkels, mask, fins and a 5-gallon bucket. You go about 11 miles out and the water is still between 4-8 feet deep. The grass underneath is very pretty. You snorkel along and find the scallops; the secret is to look for their blue eyes. They’re so pretty – along with the scallops, you might get lucky and find a lobster or two and starfish are Everywhere, they are so pretty, too – I never saw one up close until that one trip. The grass under water filters the light and sways with the light currents, it is BEAUTIFUL here. The bottom feels soggy, so be sure to wear swimming shoes. Also, watch out for the fire coral, which you see often enough. We saw a baby dark shark. It was really cute, swimming around. Poor thing probably got lost and swam inland too far. It is an amazing place. I want to go back, especially before I go to Cali permanently!!!

When I was in Japan, staying in a hostel, one of my roomates one night was an Austrailian girl that was traveling with friends all over the world. She had just spent 6 weeks in India, where she said the people treat women, especially white women, very badly. (As in they will spit at you and make your trip difficult) Granted, she was extremely fair-skinned and naturally bright blonde, and she spoke her mind no matter what it was. She said it was a wonderful place, nonetheless, but she was happy to be somewhere not as sandy for a change. I would love to visit India, but I don’t want to cause a scene anywhere just by showing up… I like to blend when I travel – I don’t want to be a tourist, I want to be a well-seasoned traveler. I guess I’ll have to research more. But this hasn’t been the only time I heard that women aren’t treated well there. Any thoughts?

I was 12. We were driving from Warsaw to Italy (just past Rovereto, to visit my great grandmother) and stopped in Germany to rest. One of the stops (we were in the middle of nowhere) was at a restaurant (Angelica’s something) and really, it was a strip club with a restaurant on the side.

You could hear the music pumping and the restaurant was empty. The look on my grandmother’s face whenever she looked at my grandfather! It was pretty funny, even when I was so young. At least the decor was nice, with what looked like mahogany and marble tables and large elaborately carved chairs. The food was very delicious. Then two strippers came in for a break – They were dressed, one in an oversized T-shirt and the other in a long-sleeved, short short dress. The one in the dress kept flirting with a man – it was quite obvious what the offer between the two of them was. I remember thinking the girl in the T-shirt was very pretty, and I liked her eye-liner. She was sitting at another table, eating ice cream. She looked very “French” and I wondered why she wanted to work in that place when she was so pretty. My grandfather, of course, made a comment to my grandmother, something to the likes of, “Honey, why can’t you look like this for me?” I had to laugh a little, because the situation was akward, but we were hungry.

I want to visit Germany again. I wanted to go to the LoveParade when I was younger, but all that is not what it used to be – but I do want to visit the rest of the country, especially the historical sites and art museums, as well as the symphony in Munich, where my great aunt (though only about 10 years older than me) plays the chello.

Well, where do I start? I was going on a trip with young family members to Atlanta. There were four of us total, me and my significant other and then another couple (family) from up north. We wanted them (and us) to see the Georgia State Aquaruium in Atlanta (the brand new state of the art facility that is supposed to house the most water ever and have the coolest displays or something like that)

We were driving down Friday and returning on Saturday. We finally arrived in Atlanta, where we took them to The Varsity for some of their classic soggy fries (hey, everyone has to eat there at least once; the food is good ONLY when piping hot) and then we were off looking for a hotel.

A little over four hours later, we find ourselves without a place to stay and the rates for a place just outside the city with no view range in the lower $200s. A Basketball game, several medical conferences and a future college chemistry tournament were the causes for all this non-vacancy.

My boyfriend, convinced that I should be the one that goes to barter prices and check out the rooms, makes me do exactly that. All while the four of us are juggling city maps, trying to manuever around all the one-ways and sudden highway on-ramps. The Super8 was available, but it smelled of bleach and the walls looked like they were sweating, both in the inside and outside of the hotel. In another of the hotels, some crack-addicted hotel employee even told me he would give me someone else’s reserved room if I tipped him $25 in cash. With a straight face, no less!!!! (ummm…. yea…) So, we really wanted to be close to Peachtree Street (the main one), as we drove down it, slightly exhausted, I saw The Sheraton… My BF said that it would be expensive, but I didn’t care – I was going to ask AND get a special or else. Plus, my parents stayed there in Paris and my mother said it was a really nice place and that they were treated really well there.

We drive up and in I go with jeans and a zip-up jacket, slightly embarassed, but with my game face on, into the lobby of black-tie/evening own event dressed people to beg for a room. (Was a wedding going on?) I walk up to the counter of a tall, dark and curly-locked foreign guy and after telling him he would make my night 100% better if he would tell me that they have an open room… He smiled politely and looked into the computer screen…alas nothing except two handicap rooms (for $189 each, two people max per room). I didn’t mind the fact that the rooms were “hanidcap” rooms, but this was going to cost us $400!!

I don’t know if it was the look of desperation and final defeat in my face (I must have looked really horrible), but the manager walked up and asked if he could help and I told him my situation and he asked me very discreetly how much I was willing to spend (Originally the deal was that we find something nice for $80, but the prices kept going up).. I was standing in The Sheraton, with all these cocktail people around me…so I smiled and said $150 through my teeth. He very politely said he would go to the back and call the other hotels in the area….

Not even a minute passed and he was out with a smile on his face.

Him: “How about $129?”
Me: “Really, where?”
“That’s our rate”
“But there are four of us…”
“That’s fine.”
“Ok, just give me one second, I have to tell everyone.”

I ran out and told everyone this is it! We had to take it or we would end up 15 miles north of ATL. We had a good view of the city, were one block away form a bus stop and the subway. We even had parking in a garage, steps away from the hotel entrance.

We got in the room and it was lovely and fresh and clean! We contemplated if the two water bottles were indeed complimentary and then we laughed a tad and decided to see the city at night.
We arrived at the bus stop and it was FREEZING outside, but the bus came and we figured out that you NEED change to ride the bus system, but since we were only going a couple blocks (we thought the Fox Theatre was further away), the driver showed us a little mercy for being short a couple bucks.

We walked around and showed them a couple sights and enjoyed the lovely scenery. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel and stopped at a bar to scarf down a few yummy appetizers and some well-deserved beer.

The next morning we were up early and then decided that we were hungry, so we checked out of the hotel and went out to find a place to eat before going on a tour of the Fox Theatre. We were going to eat at the hotel, but breakfast was $10 a pop, and we wanted to save some money…and we sort of did. What we found was Goldberg’s… We looked at the menus at the door to see if it was affordable and most of the meals were around $6-$7 dollars, so we went in. A server evenually came to us and took our drink orders, though they were out of the first three things I asked for. So, I ordered a juice and a water. I asked for the water twice and I never received it. In fact, it took them 15 minutes to take our order and then the food never arrived (umm… how long does it take to make a Spanish omlette and toast in a not-so busy restaurant?)

Not to mention, the prices on the menu wer $2 more on the menues inside. (Meaning, next time, we’ll just brunch at the hotel and save ourselves time and hassle.) We were starting to run short on time and had been sitting down for about 45 minutes and my other said, “Let’s leave…”

“What?”

“We’ll miss the tour, and that’s one if the main reasons we’re here – plus we don’t have time to eat now and I don’t want to pay for this kind of awful service; we should have been already walking out the door.”

He was right. It was like we were being ignored because we were young… I had never walked out of any place at all before, but I figured we were right in what we were doing, because it should not take more than 15 minutes to cook and serve omlettes and toast… Did they ever put the order through? As we were walking out, our juices almost empty on the table, one of the servers smiled, waived and said “Y’all have a great day”.. We sheepishly replied, “Ya, you too…” I still don’t understand. Did they not realize that we ordered food? But, we arrived at the theatre, just in time, hungry, but proud of ourselves for standing up for something, even if it was just in a restaurant.

The tour was AMAZING – it is great, now I want to come back and see a live performance there. It truly is amazing. Words can’t describe it, you have to go. :)

Afterwards, we headed to the aquarium and we stopped by Quizno’s on our way to the aquarium. First of all, they were out of my sandwich’s sauce (and my boyfriend’s) and a weird lady came up to us, asking if she could use our cellphone to make a long-distance call… Maybe we were jinxed by her, but still, we didn’t know who she was going to call and how long it would take. She didn’t seem normal, and we were honestly scared to give this person our phones; that and we needed to get to the aquarium.

It was about 12:30p.m. and as we were walking up there were a bunch of signs saying they were sold out… We walked up to the entrance and a bunch of people were walking away – the girls in the front were rude, and emotionless as they were yelling out that they were sold out for the day and also Sunday. My boyfriend said, hey, my relatives are from Indiana and I wanted them to see the aquarium, that’s the main reason we came to visit this city. The girl stared him blankly in the face and said, “There was a family that came all the way from Mexico and we had to turn them away, too.” The best part of all of this was the little girl (about 5 or 6 years old) I saw with a little cute beanie on – she clearly was fighting cancer and was softly crying as her mom was saying, “It’s ok honey, we’ll go to the park today and we will come back another day – we’ll see it soon – I promise.” The little girl said, “ok” between her little breaths.

Talk about southern hospitality. The point is that this wouldn’t make us so mad, IF there was a disclaimer on their website. We were expecting a lot of work to find a hotel, and we researched the Fox tours and we also researched the aquarium’s website and NO WHERE on there did it say, “It may be a good idea to buy tickets ahead of time, because they tend to sell out.” We figured tickets would be available at the door as long as we didn’t show up late in the afternoon. (We even checked the website again after we got home – nope, no disclaimer…) We decided to go back to the hotel and see if the Tennessee Aquarium was open and to get directions; the hotel kindly gave us everything we needed, but then we were stuck in traffic on the way back and couldn’t make it in time.

By the time we were half way to Chatanooga, we didn’t want to do anything else anyway. MY boyfriend even said that he really doesn’t want to go to the aquarium after what he saw that day. I think it’s a shame, even from a business perspective – it just seemed very unorganized and unfriendly, unlike what the website showed. A little dismayed, but I think it will be better when we visit ATL again, that was our first time actually staying the night there, so we’re better prepared with what we know now. Overall though, it was an interesting experience that I am able to laugh at now. :)

I don’t mind this place, but there’s not a whole lot that goes on in this state…. Maybe the coast is nice, but besides a few cool antique shops… eh…

I would go to the park all the time when I was little.

I like to visit the motor-museum. I also like to go to Macinac Island…

went here for a month with her boyfriend, to visit his family. I heard the coolest things about it!!!!! She said it was gorgeous and the weather was perfect. I have to go now!

If I can convince my Dad and my boyfriend to go. It’s for a scuba class. I’ll have to go (I already paid for it and am taking it as a credit course through my school.)... so, I’m excited. Everything’s a little iffy because of the Katrina hurricane… we’ll see.
k.