hops' nephew had a wedding in Athens, GA the other weekend. we flew in to atlanta to attend.
having arrived in atlanta, we secured our rental car (no small feat, as they'd evidently lost our info) and drove to athens. along the way, we stopped at a regional bbq chain, the name of which i have forgotten, which troubles me not one whit, having as i do no intention of returning my business to that chain. we were led to this place by our Hertz GPS, which had only shortly prior failed to guide us to a jerk restaurant, the restaurant itself having ceased to exist some time between the publishing of the GPS map an our searching for it.
during the plane ride to georgia and the subsequent days, up until just 3 days ago at my parents' house, i was engaged in the pursuit of the completion of the novel "The Diamond Age", which appears to have influence my writing style inasmuch as i've evidently adopted a pretentious Victorian writing style, as evidenced by the presence of superfluous verbiage.
or maybe i'm just happy to be caressing the ivory again, as it were.
anyhow. georgia. the first taste of barbecue was a huge letdown, but that only because it was chain barbecue. we arrived in athens and settled in for the night. the next morning, hops and i went for a run through the local college campus, where, coincidentally, a 5k run/walk was being held. an observant observer would have recognized that she and i were not participants in this event not only by the absence of numbers on our shirts, but by the fact that we were running, not walking.
i decided then that my future travels, the ones which would not afford cycling, would feature running, as often as possible. for the 3 days we were in georgia, that was the only day we ran, but it was also the day i felt the best. i appreciated the athens air, scenery, sunshine, and people much more as i ran through them than at any other point in my visit.
after our run we dressed and went to meet with hops' family, after which we headed downtown to The Trapeze, which had been recommended to us by The Captain, who, though he had never been to this particular venue, had spent some time in Athens, and Georgia, having grown up (insofar as he has done so) in The South.
The Trapeze was not open for eating until 30 minutes after our arrival, we found out, but fortunately the taps were open. The beer list was rather mind blowing, and I treated myself to 4 of their finest, including a pint of the local Terrapin Brewery's Rye Pale Ale. It was actually one of the better RyePA's that I've had, thoroughly enjoyable. The others were Belgian and weird. At one point, the waitress, whom I asked to teach me some Southernisms in trade for the words "hella" and "dude" (out in California, we say "dude" all the time, and not when we want to be ironic or something, it's just another word for us!), brought out a shot glass of beer for me to sample in lieu of what I had ordered. They were out of the exotic Belgian beer I'd asked for, but maybe I'd want to try this new beer they'd gotten in this week for the first time: Stone Pale Ale. Ha! I laughed a bit, and hops knew what was funny, and after I finished my giggles I explained that although Stone Pale Ale is excellent and I appreciated the sample, Stone is brewed in CA, from which I had just come, and I was not in the mood for my own local brew! Har de har. The food there was pretty weak but the beer was great.
Afterwards, I topped myself off with an Irish Something Or Another, some espresso concoction featuring hazelnut syrup and amaretto. It too was excellent but my judgement may at that time have been impaired. We went off in search of Terrapin Brewery, for the obtainment of schwag.
The waitress' directions to the brewery were 100% bogus. We recovered from this and headed out on our own. Tragically, the brewery was closed until that evening -- when we'd be at the wedding. Doh! Well, that's what we get for not planning to go to the brewery. Next time, we'll make better plans in that regard.
We went back to the hotel, failed to ingest more beer, and got a massage. It was a hotel/spa and we had an appointment and a coupon, but neither these nor the massage really removed any of my tension. She spent a lot of time on my neck and I think I have a tumor there, and little time on my legs which I had just pounded that morning during my run. Meh. After the massage we'd wanted to go swimming, but, unfortunately, the pool was closed.
After that, there was a wedding. After that, there were lots of pictures. After that, there was a reception with an "open bar" which featured my choice of Budweiser, Amstel Light, Coors Light, or that beer that compares itself to ass. I chose the king of crap beers but could swallow no more than one mouthful. That puts my lifetime Budweiser consumption at 24 ounces, one mouthful. I think I've learned my lesson: only at the brewery is it drinkable.
The reception, featuring activities which can be said, with dry, extreme understatement most befitting my pretentious pseudovictorian style, to have failed to pique my interest, happened. That having happened, and having not stopped, and having finally wrapped up, I helped transport gifts up to the bridal suite and then accompanied hops, her sister, and the sister's boyfriend downtown to Athens, to a bar called The Globe, which had been selected by my 24/7 internet uplink based on criteria which I had suggested, namely, a large selection of premium whiskeys, dammit. as it happened, the Trapeze had a more than respectable scotch selection, of which we did not avail ourselves on that trip, but which we could surely avail ourselves on our next visit. The Globe did not have, to my disappointment, a large selection of Bourbon, as I had hoped during my first visit to The South to imbibe their local spirit. Instead, I was fortunate enough to sample some Laphroaig 15, some Suntory Yamazaki, and some JMR "Rich Spicy One". All excellent, all at excellent prices -- the sort of prices you don't see in CA where two shots of whiskey could purchase a whole bottle. I finished off the JMR and was offered the bottle, which I refused as graciously as I could.
At one point hops had to visit the loo and asked me to look after her effects, which included her shiny metal badge, the latter which I took up to the bar, and with which, accompanying my proclamation of "whiskey inspector!" i endeavored and failed to obtain free spirits.
after this we parted ways with the sister and went in search of the wedding party, having determined after 2 rounds of drinks that they were not, in fact, joining us, even though they'd said they would. we tracked them down to an all-night diner, where i had my first taste (at last!) of real southern food: one piece of fried okra. it blew my mind, i think. it was good, at least. and this was just a crummy diner. before leaving the diner, we obtained the name of a good breakfast place for the morrow.
the morrow arrived, too late for a run before checkout and departure for atlanta. instead of a run, we went to the Five Star Day Cafe or some such, and ordered the Elvis Breakfast, which is a peanut butter and banana french toast sandwich. i also had grits, with cheese. the breakfast was good, and southern i'm sure, but not so great.
the drive to atlanta was, i am sure, quite scenic. i'd be even more sure had i been awake for it. we stopped in Decatur for lunch/beer at The Brick Store, another recommendation from the Captain. Two beers and one Brunswick stew into lunch, circumstances demanded that we cut our visit short and depart for the hotel, which we did. At the hotel, many words were exchanged. The effects of those words have yet to be observed in full. At some point during the exchanging of words, the recently married man called us and asked to sleep on a rollaway in our room. His new wife had departed or was departing or something and he was going to stop in atlanta on his way to really i didn't care enough to remember all the details. all i heard was "rollaway bed" and i said "get him his own room". he was hard up for cash on account of the father of the bride had evidently stiffed him for a large portion of the wedding bills. yikes!
so our dinner plans were delayed as we awaited his arrival, with his best man, with whom we intended to share our dinner. waiting thus decided upon, we departed to the hotel bar, where, finally, i was able to obtain southern spirits: a pair of mint juleps. i've never had one before, and granted, it was evening in georgia and not a day at the races in kentucky, but the bartender either knew how to make a delicious mint julep or a delicious non-mint-julep. either way, the drinks we got were fantastic. equally fantastic was the emptiness of our stomachs, and, despite the edamame we got with the mint juleps, we were too buzzed to drive by the time the groom arrived. he was told he'd be driving.
we got our car out of the lot and set off, with hops navigating. now, here is where the story gets fuzzy in my mind. on the way to the BBQ restaurant, Daddy D'z, we covered most of the roads in Atlanta, as hops led us down one variant of "lost" after another. The part that I can't remember is whether we first discovered that she was intermixing street turns from two different sets of directions, or whether we first discovered that the address she'd put into the GPS had an extra digit in the numeric portion. In any case, we had to conquer two major obstacles before we arrived at Daddy D'z, 9:35 pm. "They're closed" said the woman coming out of the restaurant with takeout. sigh.
I told hops she needed to tell them a sob story to keep them open so I could have my gorram southern barbecue. that she did, and the guy at the counter was so accomodating and awesome, he took our order. and order we did. meat after meat, side after side, and cornbread. we kept on ordering and ordering and then we signed off a really big tip and sat down to wait.
after a while, he called me up to the counter to ask if i wanted plates. plates? i asked. paper plates. oh? i asked if he was kicking us out. i said that was fine with me and i understood completely, i just needed to know. apparently this was more begging than he could stomach, and he invited us to stay. we offered to leave so he could close, but by this point he would not hear of it, and told me my jewish mother would be proud. how'd he know?
so we sat down and he brought us our barbecue, and paper plates. the portions were extra big, and he kept on bringing out extra plates of stuff we hadn't ordered. how was the food, you ask?
unbelievably great. having had no exercise that day i was incapable of the great feats of engorgement that i can sometimes pull off, but i did my best. it was goooooood. the cornbread was like nothing i've had before or since, and out of this world. the meats were smoky and tender, or smokey and chewy, and i like both. the greens were a little disappointing and the brunswick stew was better in Decatur (which they knew!) but the meats were the best barbecue i've had, ever. the cornbread topped the meats.
eventually, after much conversing with the counter guy, we left and went back to the hotel bar. another two mint juleps -- this time, they were awful. we decided to send them back and watched as The Older Bartender sipped them, dumped them, and taught The Younger Bartender how to make mint juleps. We got two new juleps, one obviously mixed by a novice. They were not up to the standards of the original earlier that day, but they were still quite good.
Night passed and another morning occurred. We went down to the hotel pool -- this one wasn't closed -- and went for a swim, within 30 minutes of breakfast. blurp. I remembered how much i like swimming and decided i need to do more of it at home. it sure isn't convenient, like running or biking, both of which i can do from home. so it goes.
after this, we went in search of Fox Bros BBQ, which wasn't easy to find. Having found it, we had lunch. The meats were deliciously dry rubbed in the Texas fashion, and the fried pickles were outstanding. For some reason, I don't remember having cornbread, i'm not sure how that could have happened. The flavor was not on par with Daddy D'z, but it was still head and shoulders better than any BBQ i've had on the west coast. having gorged ourselves thoroughly, we departed. with hours to kill, we went to the Coca Cola museum in atlanta -- yup.
The tour was meh, and I was real thirsty. we hurried our way to the tasting room which had around 70 coca cola company beverages on tap, from all around the world. we sampled each one, forcing ourselves to choke down diet and cherry and diet cherry coke, along with powerade, nestea, and other abominations. among the many, many, many abominations, there was Simba, a delicious South American product that was tasty enough to warrant a second sampling. Tasty as well was the Strawberry Fanta. Yum! Extra bletch on all the US offerings. There was some Lemony stuff from the limeys that was tasty, but a similar product from the same continent that was puckersome.
Amid much burping and bellyaching, we departed the coke museum, having consumed more caffeine and CO2 than was healthy, and stopped to redeem the "free coffee" coupon that had come with our tickets for the museum. i had an espresso concoction featuring caramel, whipped cream, and who knows what else. i did not, as i had predicted i would, reach a state of caffeine overdose, though i surely came close.
on the plane, we consumed nearly all the leftovers from Fox Bros which had been destined for The Captain. he still got some leftover fried pickles.
in all, a most enjoyable tour of southern barbecue, and also, a touching wedding between two people who have intended to marry for a very long time. a swell trip. the people of the south, outside of the airport, of course, were overwhelmingly warm, hospitable, and friendly, even to a weirdo like myself. i must admit i was expecting otherwise, and was pleasantly surprised.
