The Best of the Rest!

So after Atlanta, I went to the land of no wifi -- Charlotte, NC. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that there is wireless internet in Charlotte, just not where I was so now you get a crash course on my last day in Atlanta and how I spent the rest of my week.

We started our last day in Atlanta with donuts (which I already blogged about) and after doing some business-y things, we went out to the Krog Street Market. It was pretty cute and I got a really awesome grilled cheese and some garlic parmesan fries, but nothing too special. The Krog Street Market also had The Little Tart Bakeshop which is on the list. I got a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie which probably would have been better if I'd eaten it right away, instead of letting it sit in Melissa's purse all afternoon and eating it as a late night snack, but still tasty!

Next we walked down the street to the Krog Street Tunnel. It's just a tunnel except for the fact that it's basically a living art museum. Every inch is graffiti. It was kind of a strange tourist destination, but really beautiful if you ask me (and I guess you sort of are since you're reading this blog). I tried to take a panoramic photo because I thought that would be really cool, but cars kept having the audacity to drive through my shot!

Post Krog-Street Tunnel, we headed over towards the Majestic Diner where we would be meeting my friend, Woodchuck Will, for a farewell dinner. The thing was, we were about four hours early for dinner, so we ended up walking to Piedmont Park which was gorgeous. And hot. Very hot. I was a sweaty girl (Melissa doesn’t sweat, she sparkles. She even has a shirt that says so, I on the other hand, sweat. A lot). Once we’d done a lap and basically exhausted ourselves, we headed back towards the Majestic, except we were still an hour early, so we walked to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory, which we’d read about as having delicious peach cupcakes. When we got there, they didn’t actually have any peach cupcakes, which was incredibly disappointing, but I did get a red velvet cupcake. Little Thomson would be very upset with big Thomson right now, because not only did I eat the icing, I thought it was the best part of the cupcake.

We loitered outside of the cupcake place for a while since we’d been walking all day and then went back to the diner. The Diner is from The List and it was yummy but nothing special. It was a diner, ya know? I got pancakes and I think it’s pretty hard to mess up those. We said goodbye to Will (for now, since we’ll be seeing him in two weeks) and went back to our hotel to indulge in a bottle of Red Truck Wine that we’d found.

The next morning, we said goodbye to Atlanta with some Waffle House for breakfast and a Cookout shake for lunch. I dropped Melissa off at the airport (not the Atlanta airport, but another airport in Atlanta because we later found out that she’d actually booked herself a private flight to Memphis!) and I drove on to Charlotte.

Gotta love the snap stickers

I mainly vedged out in Charlotte. I stayed with Whitney’s friend from school and made a new best friend in Carl, the one-eyed cat. He is seriously my best friend now. Leaving him was the hardest thing I have ever done! I did some sight-seeing around Charlotte, including walking the majority of the “Liberty Walk” which is like their equivalent of Boston’s Freedom Trail except that all of the historic buildings have been demolished. I also got a vegan cheesesteak and walked two miles in 95 degree weather to try a vegetarian restaurant. 

I visited Charlotte's "hipster neighborhood" NoDa, which was very disappointing EXCEPT for Amelie's French Bakery which comes from The List and which I would say is the first flat out "oh my goodness, you need to go there" hit that I've had in a while. The List has taken us to some really interesting places, but this one really was special. It's billed as a traditional French bakery, but I've been to France and can tell you that it is anything but; it's more like a French bakery meets American pop culture. I don't think my pictures really capture much since I was trying to be stealthy because everyone around me was already giving me weird looks from being sweaty. I think their little love lock bridge was cute, although if people seriously put locks there, I'm worried about their relationships. I got a blueberry cream cheese muffin and it was all sorts of goodness.

CARL

Overall in Charlotte, it was mainly me sitting on the couch with the kitten watching Netflix or sitting out by the pool and that is 100% fine with me.

Now I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia, prepping for another residency. Charlottesville is the biggest place I've worked so far and I'm almost overwhelmed by how much there is to do here! There will be lots to blog about for sure!