Atlanta!

Before I start detailing the first 48 hours of my unbooked week, I should let you all know that the show in Talladega went swimmingly (can I say that now that we're doing Aladdin and not The Little Mermaid?). It was a great show, especially for it being our first week and I rocked it.

Now we are unbooked for this next week and we are spending our first few days in Atlanta before we part ways with Melissa heading to Tennessee and me driving up the east coast to our next residency in Virginia. The first great thing I noticed in Atlanta is that they had stickers on S
napchat! Mandy and I always used to complain about the lack of stickers in Canada, so whenever we're anywhere with stickers now, it is a big deal! Three whole stickers, man.

Another cool thing about Atlanta (before we get into discussing the city itself) is that my friend, Will, just moved here so I got to see him yesterday!!! He's been here for like a week and I'm pretty sure that I was his first visitor.

Before we saw Will, however, we stopped at the drive-in, The Varsity, which my dad told me is like Atlanta tradition. It was also on The List, but I will say that I trust my dad's opinion as much (or maybe more) than Buzzfeed. There wasn't a lot that I could eat there since it was a burger joint (this is a recurring theme in my life these days) but I got a grilled cheese, fries and chocolate shake (no vanilla there).

We are staying at the world's worst EconoLodge, so that is not fun (too much to blog about here, but I will say that things got off to a great start when we found cigarette burns on the comforter of our "non-smoking" room) but we are enjoying Atlanta itself. I started working on my tan lines yesterday because Will is staying somewhere with a pool and we went to a very interesting place for dinner, suggested by Will's housemates (Bantam Pub... like an anagram for Batman but the place had nothing to do with Batman and played a lot of ladies of the 80s).

I promised my mom and sister a pic of the otters

Today, we started the day off at the Georgia Aquarium, which is apparently the biggest in the country and considered Sea World without the animal abuse (not saying Sea World abuses the animals, Mandy, it's just hyperbole). It has the standard favorites -- beluga whales, penguins, dolphins, otters, etc. -- BUT it is one of two aquariums in the world to have whale sharks! They also have a manta ray named Nandi and I think they might be the one of the only aquariums to have one of those as well. Melissa and I got there right at the start of the day so it was pretty empty which was luxurious to say the least. This meant that we had time to walk around and see everything without having to fight our way through anyone to get a peak and then walk around a second time once the trainers had started giving talks about the animals.

I discovered my new spirit animal -- the sarcastic fringehead -- it's a type of fish. An awesome type of fish with an awesome name.

Ummmm... whale shark.

They might have also had the weirdest dolphin show in the history of dolphin. It included Patrick Stewart and a guy in a glittery cape and singing and dolphins, of course, but the glittery cape might have been the highlight (his name was Star Spinner and I'm still laughing about it).

While at the aquarium, Melissa and I took an inordinate amount of photos of penguins and seahorses because of Aladdin and Little Mermaid. The youngest cast group in each show are those respectively and we want to make the animals look the part, so I proudly present my photoshopping skills!

Let's mosey, seaponies

They were going to a wedding, now they don't know where they're heading.

Post aquarium, we got lunch at the oh-so fabulous Johnny Rocket's (no judgment! We were hungry and it was the only place we could find reasonably priced food within a mile radius) and then went over to the World of Coke. I didn't take any real pictures at the World of Coke because despite some very cool stuff, there wasn't much to photograph. Everything was cool to look at but it might not have been the place for us since neither of us drink Coke. (We accepted the complimentary bottles anyways because why not? We totally have the space for them... Just kidding, we do not, we live in a truck).

We visited Morelli's Gourmet Ice Cream after the long hot day of sightseeing. This place comes straight from The List and I don't think we were disappointed. I know I had a delicious dessert!

We're back at our (crappy) hotel now, where I am currently engaged in a battle with the receptionist, but I got to spend a half an hour by the pool (did I get tan lines? Yes, I did) and we'll be going to dinner soon before planning out our day tomorrow.