Hotlanta

While we were out in Pittsburgh, we also took a little jaunt down to the Dirty South, to Kate's old haunt of Hotlanta. Her sister, Stephanie, and her brother and his wife (Chirs and Collins) all live there, along with the latest addition to the family, Kate's new baby niece, Emerson Ann Foster.

We stayed with Chris and Collins (and Stephanie and Emerson… and Mark and Elaine, as they'd come down to visit too) after completing the 12 hour drive through pockets of downpours so thick you could barely see three feet ahead. But once we got to Atlanta, the weather was beautiful, sunny, and not usually too terribly hot. We took advantage of it by getting outside and going to a beer festival. The East Atlanta Beer Festival, to be exact, where we got to sample over 170 craft beers. Chris and Collins were meant to join us but neglected to buy their tickets in advance and the event sold out. But Kate, Stephanie, and I soldiered on ahead and got our 6 oz tasting glasses filled time and time again, making sure to get our money's worth (which I know we did because at $30/ticket we'd have to drink roughly the equivalent of 6 12oz beers at $5/pop, or sample at least 12 beers/person, which, to say we did, would be an understatement, to say the least).

We did, however, meet up with Chris and Collins for some drinks later in the evening after a scrumptious dinner back home. Speaking of scrumptious dinners, we also went out to eat at Panahar, a Bengladeshi restaurant recommended highly by Chris who suggested we just ask them to order the food for us. We did and it was excellent. As they say, after all, every item there is "prepared to ensure freshness and flavor to achieve optimum taste." Quite tasty, as was the trip to Maggiano's, which would have been much less awkward had Stephanie not moved out of the way when I shot a projectile out of my straw at her, instead hitting the lady at the table behind us. I am, for those of you who don't know, twelve.

One unexpected Atlanta visitor was our friend Pargol. Blog readers may remember her from those 10 days of extreme awesomeness in Vienna for the Euro Cup, but she was also Kate's freshman year roommate at UCLA. Pargol was actually only in Atlanta for about 8 hours as she had a layover en route to South Africa where she was headed to go to Kate's other freshman year roommate's wedding. So we picked her up from the airport, got some brunch at the famous Flying Biscuit (our second time eating there during the trip, by the way), then wandered around the Highlands trying to shop for a wedding gift for two orthodox Jews, which is much more difficult than you might think. After all that, it was back to the airport and onto South Africa. For Pargol, at least.

For us, it was almost time to go, but not before going to a Braves game, courtesy of Mitsubishi Electric, Kate's Dad's company who put in the big screen at the stadium. We sat in the company seats right behind the Braves' dugout and watched them defeat the Cubs in dramatic fashion after a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Emerson didn't make it past the 9th (though she did excellently till then), but she did make it onto the big screen as Collins has a hookup with one of the camera men at Turner Field.

It was soon time to go, however, and we set off again for the 12 hour drive back, this time just Kate and I as her mother had flown back (though she drove down with us). On our way out of town, we swung through Lilburn, Kate's hometown, to see the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Hindu Temple, the largest Hindu temple in North America. It's built from Italian marble, Turkish limestone, and Indian sandstone and every piece of it was carved by sculptors in India, then shipped to the States for assembly. It is, I can assure you, extremely impressive and worth a visit. We would have liked to stay for a service, but our timing unfortunately did not allow for such as we needed to get back on the long road up to Pittsburgh...