Friday
Since I hadn’t gone to New York, I came to Atlanta straight from Frankfurt, arriving at around 3 p.m. I took the MARTA rail from the Airport to North Ave and had to walk 18 minutes to our Airbnb. No American ever would have probably walked that distance (especially with a big suitcase) but I figured after a 10-hour flight, some walking couldn’t hurt. (“Beine vertreten” ;)) I was the first one to arrive at the Airbnb which honestly was a bit scary, simply because it was so big since it was meant for up to 12 people.
I didn’t stay long though because I was pretty hungry, so I went straight to Chick-Fil-a for my first fast-food meal of the trip. It was really good and definitely my favorite fast-food chain out of the ones we tried. After I had finished eating, I went back to the Airbnb where Emma was about to arrive. I was sitting on the curb facetiming a friend and a woman, who was walking her dog, cheers-ed my drink with her tumbler which I thought was very cute.
Emma came, dropped off her things and we went straight back outside to get some groceries at Trader Joe’s. An American friend of mine had told me before that it was her favorite grocery store and I could see why. It was (for American standards) very affordable and also just super cute! Very organized and not nearly as big as Walmart or Target, so not as overwhelming. I also told the guy at the register that it was our first time at Trader Joe’s since we were visiting from Germany and he gave us shopping bags for free!
After our successful shopping spree, we went back to the Airbnb. The others (or most of the others; look at the other blog posts) got there pretty late and I was too exhausted to wait, so I was already sound asleep when they came.
Saturday
First (and only) full day in Atlanta! After enjoying some bagels and eggs that Emma and Kirsten had gotten for us in the morning, we took Uber/Lyft to get to the Coca-Cola Museum. I didn’t feel like spending $30+ to go, so I unfortunately can’t provide insight on that. Instead, I walked around for a little bit and just got some coffee. Once the others were done at Coca-Cola, we got something to eat at *surprise* Chick-Fil-a before driving to the Braves Stadium.
It was my first time going to a Baseball game, so it was a bit confusing at first, but I was able to figure out the basics pretty quickly and had a lot fun! I got some ice cream in a little baseball hat cup which was super cute and we also watched a little bit of the England-France game on the side. (The European in us just had to)
After the game, we went to “La Villa” and had some delicious tacos before heading to the Ponce City Market. We were originally planning on getting some beers there but since it was about to close, we headed to the nearest grocery store instead and just got some drinks there before heading back to the Airbnb where we enjoyed the rest of our evening playing some card games and talking.
At some point, we got a text message from Onur. He had gotten a picture of his suitcase sitting at the doorstep of his Airbnb. The Airbnb we were in, where we hadn’t seen said suitcase… We immediately went outside to check and it turned out they had left his suitcase by the front door of the owners of the Airbnb. The houses were joined but obviously had seperate entrances. They had a little dog-gate up, so it felt weird at first stepping over that to get on their front porch to get the suitcase. At the same time, we were obviously scared it would get stolen if left outside for much longer. After texting them and not receiving a response, we decided to just go and get it. Simon went ahead to get it and Onur’s suitcase was saved! (The Airbnb host responded about 30 minutes later saying that it was okay for us to go on their porch by the way). This meant Onur wouldn’t have to go to the Airport to get his suitcase (which we had originally thought he would have to do), so this was a huge win for us!
Sunday
We had to get up pretty early, since we were heading to Milledgeville that day!! Since Linus had trouble with his flight and we therefore hadn’t had our third rental car yet, we were worried about all our luggage not fitting in the cars. We had asked the Americans the day before if anyone was driving through Atlanta to go to Milledgeville and multiple people had offered to help. Lorelai ended up coming and could take three suitcases. Without her help, we wouldn’t have known what to do since almost all of us had brought big(ger) suitcases which wouldn’t have fit in only two cars. We then left Atlanta at around 11 a.m. and were on our way to Milledgeville! It was a very chill drive of about 1 ½ hours. On the way, we stopped by Raising Cane’s since we (mainly me) wanted to try it. I felt kind of bad because it honestly was pretty disappointing and I had dragged everyone there…
At around 1:45 p.m., we arrived at the dorms in Milledgeville and could check in. I was in a double dorm with Emma and it was very fun to get a glimpse into living in a typical college double-dorm. We didn’t stay too long at the dorms though, since we had plans to go to “Metropolis” for lunch and also watch the world cup final. There, we got to meet all the Americans for the first time (at least for me and Emma it was the first time). We had a very good time. The Americans weren’t the biggest soccer fans but a good amount of them stayed until the end, even for the overtime. Once the game was over, we went to Greenway, which was a trailway/park nearby. After walking for a bit, we headed to Walmart for the first time! We got a scooter-cart and messed around a little bit. Obviously the store was huge and a lot of items double or more the size of German products. Back at the dorms, we met up in the Community Room and hung out, but overall kept it pretty low-key for our first night.
