Does Coca-Cola count as culture?

So our last night in Asheville was CRAZY. Turned out there was this mini-street festival on, just hippies ad jazz EVERYWHERE. It was lovely!





Hippies have no insecurities whatsoever! There was some craaazy dancing on the street...Calum and I felt very 'British' (pale and static...)









We went for dinner at 'The Southerner'. To be perfectly honest was a LITTLE disappointing. I was really looking forward to my classic Southern dish of Chicken and Waffles but it was all a bit soggy really:

We discovered a whole other area of Asheville that night, so happy we did. Tons of cool little vintage shops, quirky book shops and your standard hippy 'smoking' shops...don't ask!

Strolling along the street one particular street band caught out eye. ''Blind Boy Chocolate and the Milk Sheiks' consisted of one singer who played a saw with a violin bow; one double bassist  whose double base was constructed using a large stick, a metal wash basin and a string connecting them both, and an electric guitarist.

Look what else we saw! Those Crazy Southerners...

They were AWESOME. We bought their Cd! Kind of blue-grass meets country, we are quite enthralled with deep south music now! Some might say experts...some might not. Infact, most would probably not.

On the way home we bumped into this:

If you are wondering what it was, imagine how scared we were!! It was a 'drumming circle': cue the collective 'ahhhhhhhh'...

OR NOT

bloody hippies...

basically people collect here and beat their drums together and everyone dances like maniacs. It sounds so random but it was actually hysterical. Calum and I started making random animal noises and howling at the moon...and other people joined in! It was absolutely hysterical but also REALLY tiring!

We had a great night drinking good beer, listening to live music and eating GREAT ice-cream before it was home to bed!

Leaving North Carolina was really sad, it's such a beautiful state! Even more ominous was the welcome sign to Georgia, it was a bit rubbish and we nearly missed it:

The road we had to take was the US 23. I'd like to point out at this moment something I've forgotten to until now. Calum insists on pronouncing every Interstate road we venture upon like this US two three. So instead of us hitting the Interstate Eighty-Five we went on the I Eight Five. He's so special...so cute...

Aaaaanywaaayy

The US23 was not your usual interstate; it curved through many little towns and villages. There were too many things to comment on to even START taking pictures! A lot of life-size fake bears were for sale beside the road dressed in various costumes...don't really know why!

We eventually found Rachel's place in Atlanta! Rachel is Miranda's friend who has very kindly offered to put us up in Atlanta - thank goodness. After a small nap her and her little baby Jonah introduced us to a beautiful game....

BASEBALL! We went to see the Atlanta Braves!

We had an absolutely BRILLIANT night there! Calum really like baseball because it's relaxed and you can drink there haha. Rachel introduced us to a lovely blueberry wheat beer. Calum asked the lady behind the beer stall if we could keep our bottle tops because we are collecting them and she literally opened my bag and dumped in about fifty different bottle tops! I was jingling about like some gypo all night...

It was really great having Rachel and Jonah there explaining the rules to us. We decided it's basically just like rounders. My favourite player was called 'Chipper Jones'...what a guy! Calum preferred Jose Constanza (who everyone calls George apparently. Something to do with Seinfield. Don't understand the joke but going to use it anyway so that we look cool and informed).

 The Braves ended up winning their game against the Arizona Diamond-Backs (of course) and got themselves two new fans in the process! We also caught a glimpse of the really pretty Atlanta sky-line at sunset.

 Bay bay reporting: Today we had a wee lie in then hit the town. We visited the Atlanta Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. So it was an awesome day, and I found it extremely hard to contain my excitement of seeing some awesome 'fishies' and being able to try over 60 kinds of beverage produced by Coke.

So first up was the world's largest Aquarium where you can book a sleep over apparently! Jen really really really wants to sleep over. Rachel and Jonah also came along, which was great because Rachel used to volunteer at the Aquarium and knew all kinds of fun facts!

I was also found it cool that there was Dolphins all over Atlanta which had either an artistic touch or was decorated in some fashion to represent this fine city. I remember some time ago that there was the same thing in Edinburgh with cows! (Mike Baynham may be able to add to my limited knowledge on the cows). The second picture below is Jenni with Conan O'Brian who is apparently a late night super star!

So this Aquarium was unreal, and makes Scotland's finest Deep Sea World look extremely small and RUBBISH! It was Split into 5 sections of madness. We first ventured into the Cold water quest where we saw Beluga Whales, giant Pacific octopus, Japanese Spider Crabs and weedy Sea Dragon's. We both loved the Beluga Whales, which we believe were extremely wise and rare! 

We then went to the Ocean Voyager section which was built by Home Depot. This section was by far my favourite as it included the Whale Shark which was massive. It also had a gigantic acrylic viewing window which will make anyone stop and say WOW!

We then went to see the Tropical Diver section where there were living corals and thousands of of colourful reef fish and Squirt the Turtle  wooooooooo!

In the final two section we saw animals of the river and the Dolphins! It drew a close to a funfilled morning, during which at times I'm sure it was difficult to distinguish the difference between the kids and Jenni and I- especially me! We grabbed lunch with Rachel in the Centinial Olympic Park before Jenni and I headed for the World of Coke.

The World of Coke was AMAZING. We got to do evvverything and try 64 different Coke products - all for $16!

It was so cool, we got to see the Coke bottles being filled; meet some Coke characters; have a 4D Coke experience; go to the museum of Pop Culture AND watch all the old Coke adverts being screened! Holidays are coming, holidays are coming...

We left feeling VERY emotional about Coke and all its global powers! Teaching peace, happiness and how to make the world sing! 

They also gave us a cheeky wee free bottle of Coke as we left, which we didn't really fancy at the time given that we'd just tried all the different versions of Coke from all over the world. Our tummies were FAR too bubbly.

Sorry for the long blog guys, we'll either need to blog more frequently or stop doing so much in the first place!!

So go on guys, have a coke on us!

We might have even seen it being made!

Love you all,

Cal & Jen xxxxxx