ATL Amazingness -- Beware... 133 Photos to Follow.

First and foremost, this is going to be an epically long post! There are literally 133 photos in this post. I know our goal list seemed a little ambitious for only 4 days in a place, but we actually accomplished everything on the list and THEN some! Pics and good stories on everything too. I could break this up into an event each day but then i think it takes away from the epicness that this trip was. Probably one of the best vacations I've ever had with Sketchy. So balanced and so many good people and activities and productiveness! 

Here's that list again:

- visit the one bar rescue place

- visit one of the two man v. food places (Vortex more than the other)

- eat at only ATL/GA-like places

- go out at least one night in ATL

- have a game night or bbq day/night with family

- visit Sanjay and Manisha and the boys

- tailgate and go to the falcons/jags game

- fanzone/team walk-in and go to the tech/alabama game

- visit centennial park

- visit one of the two breweries

we did all of that and we also went out an extra night in ATL, we actually had two BBQ days with family and we also hung out with not only Sketchy's awesome GA family, but my brother and two cousins also drove up on a whim to spend a few days with us!

Here we go. 

=)

We got in around 2:00pm and spent some time lounging around and relaxing before folks were off of work to head out to the falcons/jags game! I made a quick run to the local grocery store (krogers ... love SO CHEAP!) to pick up a few items. We had brought the majority of tailgate items in our new "tailgate tub."

The picture on the left is from Labor Day 2011. The picture on the right is from Labor day 2013. 

We went to the game with Sketchy's three cousins who we stayed with (fal, nipul and hetal), another cousin (sanjay) and a friend (anil). I didn't take any pictures of tailgating, and only a couple inside because i knew we'd be back at the GA Dome on Saturday. I'll add lots of pictures to the "football frenzy" tab of my very first dome stadium later! We made some good stuff though -- homemade 7 layer dip, bruchetta-like items with french baguette, spinach dip and salsa and the typical hotdogs. 

GA Dome.

view from our seats.

i went all out on the jags gear -- hat, jersey and claw! There were actually quite a few Jags fans there.

cheerleaders

dome roof

the guy behind the blue shirt guy is a random jags fan i met who's brother lives in the tiny tiny tiny town i grew up in -- Minneola. OOC.

scoreboard

everyone made fun of my claw because it was missing fingers that Lucy had chewed off in her crazy puppy phase. They kept doing this to my claw. lol

Dome was amazing because the air condition was heaven-sent. such a nice break from the atl heat we experienced earlier in the day! I didn't notice that the acoustics were any better or worse or any other discernible differences just because there is a roof. 

After the game, we went back to Fal and Nipul's house. Sketchy fell asleep on the couch while Fal, Hetal and I stayed up til about 5:30am just talking! It was really really nice.

Friday

We woke up around noon, lazed around for a bit and then Sketchy and I headed into the city to grab lunch. Hetal and Fal were going to meet up with us later that evening in the city to go out. 

VORTEX -- Man v. Food:

Vortex ended up being 18+

tons of craft beers all organized so nicely.

they had these old and new license plates from all sorts of states hung around the entire bar

there was seriously so much to look at between the posters and decorative items and coolers.

so many lit up displays too

cheddar balls of glory. amazing. served with a jalapeno ranch dip.

cheddar balls of glory. serving size obviously way too large lol

here's what sketchy was all riled up and excited about. He wanted to do the challenge which was the triple coronary but i seriously don't know how he would have been able to move for the rest of the day. he went with the double so he could still have the grilled cheese sandwiches serve as buns for the burger.

here's the crazy mess that is the double coronary.

for scaling purposes, look at the sandwich vs sketchy's head, and we all know sketchy's head is NOT small. BEFORE

AFTER

here was my meal. got a turkey burger and white chicken chili (that was actually really good!)

Sweetwater Brewery:

After lunch we headed over to a local brewery. I've been wanting to go to a real brewery tour for some time now. I've been to lots of brewery restaurants and little tiny breweries but never a bigger one or a real tour. So this was my first, and will always be a good memory, but it also wouldn't surprise me if this is my favorite. And here's why. 

1. the tour guides are awesome

2. their story is pretty awesome. two friends who started out in Denver. Decided to go get a degree in brewing beer. Ended up in ATL. They're growing so rapidly and gonna be super successful. Their beer just made it into five new states in the past month (va is one of them!)

3. after the tour 

4. You pay 10.00, get a glass and a tour and tastings. Let me tell you about these 'tastings.' You get SIX little tickets, are then allowed into this giant bar-like room that leads out to a pretty nice patio area where live music is generally playing (not on this particular day, or at least wasn't late enough =/). I look over and see that most people's glasses are almost a full pint, so i'm thinking 'okay so maybe it's like 2 or 3 tickets per glass.'  I walk up to the taps (there were around 7-8 to try) and am told it's only ONE ticket per glass. OOC. Clearly i realized why so many people were there and really dressed up. Some ppl actually go there to drink for the night and listen to live music/dance, others go to pregame! that's a hell of a deal for 10.00. We only had a couple beers so we found some nice folks dressed in VT gear and gave them our extra 9 tickets! 

outside

sign

behind sketchy you can see part of the outdoor patio where people are 'tasting'

entertaining tour guide

inside the factory

kegs!

our cups! 

the beers you could try. 

the ppl were super nice. i was able to actually just get a sip of each because the full glasses were a bit much! lol My favorite (being that i like wheats and hefes) was blue -- a blueberry wheat!

We got a Growler a while ago from a different brewery in MD so we decided to make our souvenir a growler -- perhaps we'll get a growler at each brewery we go to. Goal is 10 legit breweries in lifetime. Think the growlers will make nice man cave decor -- maybe on a few shelves on the wall.

Our Hotel:

After the brewery, we headed back to the hotel to get dressed and head back out to meet up with Fal and Hetal at dinner! 

We ended up with a really sweet hotel all on accident. Sketchy did the name your own price thing and picked really awesome locations and really high stars for a very cheap price thinking that'd never happen. Then he got the email that said it worked and his card had been charged. He panicked and freaked out since he didn't actually look up anything and we now had a hotel! Turns out it was a reallllyy nice hotel in a perfect location.

outside.

bar that had college football specials all wkend

elevators/pretty lobby decor

elevators were super nice.

was a bachelorette party (methinks) on our floor!

neat key cards. just hold up to the door to open! drunk proof.

welcome.

room was spacious.

our view of downtown atl. atl is like dc in that there are diff areas. we were in another downtown area.

patio area by pool

weird zen garden you had to walk through to get to pool.

selfies

selfies to get the bridge!

pool

Antico:

After we got dressed we headed out to dinner. This place is really neat. It was not super fancy on the outside -- looked rustic with weird lighting and cracks in the building. Inside, it was warm and cozy. This place imports all of their ingredients from Italy. It's set-up where you basically are eating in a kitchen. They bake their dough fresh each day and close when the dough or customers run out (whichever happens first). Love that. The pizzas allow for no substitutions and are served to your table. 

Oh right, and it's BYOB. So lots of places had bottles of wine. Classy, fun and interesting dinners!

where the bread is baked.

the kitchen.

the kitchen

lots of toppings you add to your pizza.

there was another room outside of this where you could sit and where you order! 

Pizza was good, not the best pizza I've ever had, but we had to get veggie because everything had sausage and such (which was probably of really good quality). It was a really awesome experience though!

 After dinner, we headed over to Hetal's friend's apartment which was basically out of this world chill and fun atmosphere. We were there for a bit and then headed out to a bar crawl where we got to see a country cover band! hearts! I actually got to have them play "chicken fried" for me for a second time in the night. The guy also was rocking a zac brown beard! after that, we walked around to other bars and ended up heading out to grab ATL 'drunk food' and headed back to the hotel.

her roommate hooked up the lights and did most of the renovations. They had a really nice modern kitchen with grey industrial cabinets and a pretty badass professional grade gas grill cook top. I don't want to upset any DC renters, but she was def paying about 1/4 of your rent. lol. ATL 1, DC 0.

sketchy and hetal

me and sketchy. actually like this picture! also love that no one had to drive and we could both just relax together. =)

sketchy, hetal and me

sketchy, hetal, fal and me

indian cingular bars lol.

and then this happened. a picture sent to my cousin Kerry in FL explaining that we were sad because he wasn't here. After a serious phone conversation, Kerry, my brother and Anup (another cousin) ended up driving up the next day to spend Sat night, Sun and half of mon with us! Such a great impromptu surprise.

group picture

and then i showed them how we could ALL be in the picture. thanks anup lol.

my zac brown man

random crazy club name lol

taco cabana -- atl drunk food! These tacos were legit. i def thought the beans were better than, dear i say it, taco bell!

=) perfect way to end a really fun-filled & food-filled day! This was the second day in a row going to bed at around 4:30am.

Saturday

We woke up around 11 and entertained the thought of pooling but then realized we had no clothes to do that and were too lazy to go look for things, so we just got dressed and headed out to lunch.

Chow Baby (a local atl chain) -- probably our favorite food we ate (and we had a lot of good stuff!) This was an asian hibachi-ish all you can eat type deal. 

The bar was this long.

there was basically everything you could want in asian meals and also some mexican and italian items

i loved how they labeled everything by writing on the glass above it. 

full bar

here's how you start, grab a bown and then these sticks to put in your bowl before you hand to a chef. the white stick was super important for me because there was lots of peanut oil/oyster oil going on on the main grill! also i liked that mine got cooked in only the chicken area!

here was my bowl by the end of the line

sketchy got nervous half way through as he realized that he had no more room but wanted so much more! the green sauce was a thai pesto which was interesting.

the really interesting part of this was that you could pick your own meat (lots to choose from, i tried chicken and fish), the amount of meat and you get to SEASON the meat!

here's where they grill

this is a pic of three random peoples' bowls lol

we got these mini spring rolls for appetizers because we did NOT realize it was all you can eat OR how big the portions would be. fail.

us with our food

better pic of sketchy's dish

my dish.

my second dish cuz i really wanted to try the noodles! lol

After eating, we drove around the city to find our parking spot for the tech/bama game. we were heading over a bit early since we got these tickets for the 'fan zone tailgate' -- you could watch the team walk-ins and there were tons of booths with giveaways! both teams are such good traveling teams. so many fans from both. it was nice to see so many vt and bama shirts throughout the wkend. 

once we parked we walked around the booths and centennial park. checked out the free concert for a bit and then headed over to the fan zone. this was a bit of a walk but was nice to walk off some of that chow baby! lol

coca cola factory

hawks arena

cnn building

centennial park

centennial park

free sheryl crow/uncle kracker concert for chik fil a kickoff

yaaay!

in the fan zone -- took the time to take pictures since the bama team was doing their walk-in (you can see all the crimson red behind me)

then the tech folks started filling in for their walk-in

selfie

then we heard the pep band and it began!

i like the big flags

every picture is blurry =( Beamer.

sweats

tees

logan thomas!

sketchy super excited after the walk-in. He thought it was pretty neat and def a highlight of the trip!

i like this one because we're cracking up -- the person taking the pic was like 'cute, okay now say ROLL TIDE!' lol

better, but blurry still.

sketchy's dream. free coke zero all the time.

PLANKO! we played a bit of this. sketchy won a drawstring backpack

stage where they had bands and stuff earlier

got my face painted for the first time! it was SUPER cold.

go hokies!

GA Dome

view from our seat and band makes the VT logo

and spellsout hokie!

bama spelled out BAMA

then they both played national anthem

here come the hokies! Enter Sandman. Jump.

enter sandman. jump.

sketchy on third down waving his keys. were so many stops on third down. D did so well. offense is a whole diff story in life. 

I've said this before but it's absolutely true, i love going to college football games more than professional. The degree of fandom and hype is much greater because there's actually a real attachment to these teams. The players aren't being paid, they're playing their hearts out. The cheers are louder, the spirit is greater and the ooc level is much higher! As we walked up to the stadium, the hokies did their normal 'before the game' cheer where half the stadium says "let's go" and the other half says "hokies." it was amazing to me how easy this cheer was to start with random people and how LOUD the cheer was!

After the game we headed back to Fal and Nipul's house for a nighttime bbq/hangout with friends and family. My brother and cousins arrived and we all ended up making this yet another 5:30am night! 

Sunday

We woke up yet again around 11:00am. 13 year old Rohan (one of sketchy's cousin's kids) came over to do our third league draft. We're in a small one with him, kate and some others folks. After the draft, we headed out to the Comeback Bar (bar rescue bar) just about 20 minutes away from Fal and Nipul. This was another item sketchy really wanted to do. 

it was kind of in the middle of no where, not surprising it wasn't doing well.

the only pic i got inside. 

We grabbed appetizers and a couple sweetwater Blues. We were actually served by the owner. She called the wings by their old name but everything else seemed to be the same since Taffer left. The bar was pretty empty but it was a dead sunday afternoon everywhere. She was nice and the food was pretty good.  

After paying our tab we headed over to Sanjay's house for an all day hangout/bbq situation. Their home was one of the most beautiful homes i've seen. Their so hospitable and really great warm people. I love sketchy's ATL family a lot. 

Around 11, we headed out to ATL for another night out. This was supposed to be a lowkey place called Flip Flops. Hetal and I decided to DD so that the orlando crew could have their fun but we could end up back in suburbia! Flip flops had a whole set of frozen drink machines behind the bar. I had tasted sips of people's drinks but they really were all just like frozen juice!

anup danced by himself on the stairs at one point

he has the most fantastic weird 'open the window stick your head out the window' dance.

wish i had gotten a VIDEO of it.

sorry about the dark poor quality, but that's just my family for ya! lolz

sketchy got into this whole making fun of kerry's drunken "point" thing so he did it in all the pics. Kris tried to do the ATL sign thing in all his pics.

group pic.

everyone. I was so sweaty! it wasn't that hot though. 

sketchy did a whole lot of giggling/laughing (the entire trip). Made me happy that he had such a great bday trip! Makes me happy to see him so happy with family too.

kerry also did a lot of giggling. This is the first time i saw kerry drunk. It was all i hoped it'd be. As you'll note, he lost his shirt lol very early in the evening.

i took a series of selfies with everyone dancing behind me, eventually hetal and kris noticed.

i'm not sure what anup is showing off here.

this one is good.

the bar after last call! there was an upstairs with a diff dj too.

we met some random brown folks -- they were patels and one lives and works just down the road from me! we're going to do hh at some point soon!

on the streets of ATL. oocness in the background.

anup found a very sad car.

Kris also got two drinks stolen within 5 minutes. YES. drinks STOELN in a club. It was quite possibly the funniest thing i've ever seen in a bar. He would put it down for two seconds to take a picture and then it'd be gone. He bought a third to see WHO was doing it, set a trap. But that one just got knocked over. Poor kris and his terrible drink luck! lol

I don't even think i can put into words how perfectly great this trip was. Family, sports, bbq, tailgates, amazing food, bar rescues and man v food places and some really fun nights as well. 

Thank you to the ATL folks who were incredibly hospitable to us and who entertained us to no end! I'm still catching up on sleep after those 5:30-11:00 naps four days in a row!