Onward!!

The heat in New York could only be described as oppressive. Exacerbated by air conditioning pretty much everywhere indoors, the outdoors felt even more stifling. Add to that the extra heat in the subway stations since the cars were pushing hot air out onto the platforms, and going anywhere was a mission. So we did the only reasonable thing to do: Go to Central Park.

Our hotel was on Columbus Circle, so right on the South-Western edge of the park. Despite that, I managed to leave the hotel in the wrong direction several times over several days. Something about the canyon-like streets flanked by immense buildings completely ruined my sense of direction. Once we did reach the park it was pretty cool to see the buildings disappear behind trees and the sound of traffic quiet down, if not completely. I don’t know what New York would be like without Central Park. Probably not livable. I can totally see how people would come and play softball on their lunch breaks at the pitches, just to feel a semblance of nature and outdoors.

The park is big, too. I somehow thought it was only a mile long (in fact it’s over two miles) and the trees are tall enough for you not to see the street and the buildings flanking the park on all sides if you step in a little bit. Sure, there are cross-cutting roads through the park, but they weren’t that busy with cars. We rambled on, past the lake with boats, through the Ramble, all the while downing copious amounts of water because of the heat. As we were sitting at a bench pretty much parallel to the American Museum of Natural History we pretty much had to give up being outside for a bit. Though the museum appealed, we decided instead to head back for an afternoon nap at the hotel.

Looking for places to go and eat dinner, and knowing that steak was a thing to have in NYC, I stumbled upon the details of a kosher steakhouse (of all things) on the upper west side, near where we had decided to head back to the hotel from earlier in the day. Of course we had to try that, as the idea of rabbinical supervision of a steakhouse was just so… New York. Unfortunately, we seemed cursed with the places we chose. It wasn’t the Sabbath, and to the best of my knowledge no other Jewish holiday, but once we reached Talia’s, it was closed, shuttered and dark. Damn.

Knowing we wouldn’t go far before finding something else, we began walking down Amsterdam Avenue. We ended up choosing a pretty little sushi place a few blocks down, and I’m really happy we did. After the meal, a reasonably-priced bento box that included miso soup and salad and various sushi, I was genuinely content – not too full, not unsatisfied. Just right. It was the best sushi I’ve ever had, too, but that’s not saying much since I don’t have much experience with it. Really tasty.

We had drinks at the Amsterdam Ale House to round off the evening. Despite being a kind of a pub, we were taken to a table by a host and served at the table. An American quirk, I guess. Thing is, they didn’t make us feel welcome. The girl taking our initial order asked “whaddaya want?” and when we did order the beers, one of them didn’t taste at all like the description. When asked (by my companion, I to this day am a bit reticent at confrontation) she said she’d find out what was up. The reply? “Oh yeah, they’ve changed that beer and she forgot to tell you”! Who prides themselves on their beer and then swaps one for another hoping the customer to not take notice? And after all this they expect a tip.

Because they’d sat us down in the middle of the room, under the blasting cold of the air conditioner, I actually started shivering after a while. We didn’t quite know what the etiquette was to move to a free outside table, so we had to ask, feeling rather sheepish. But it was OK, and much more pleasant to be on a quiet side street, in the now-pleasant evening heat, sipping a strong IPA to refresh and relax.

Apparently, airline staff call Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport “The Hive”. Apparently, it’s also the world’s busiest airport. In my experience of passing through one time, it’s all right. We’d left the early enough to make the flight on time but after the worst of the morning rush hour. It proved to be a wise choice, as after leaving our car, we could take the transit train to our terminal, check in in decent time and still have time for a good breakfast. That is, until the plane was announced to be an hour and a half late. Nothing to it but wait.

I had come to understand that for Americans, taking internal flights was like boarding a coach or train in Europe. That’s why they call standard class “coach”. And that’s precisely how it was. Small plane (an Embraer), no frills and only drinks served. It was a brilliantly clear day, and between naps I kept looking down at the territory we’d covered overland in the past few days. It was beautiful, and I kept thinking I could have quite happily kept going.

We arrived at LaGuardia, which was an experience, given that the runway extends into the bay, making it look like the plane is coming down over water. The endless rows of gridded streets below us during descent made me excited for New York. The city that never sleeps, and all that. I knew it would be a world away from Atlanta or any of the tiny places we’d visited on our road trip.

The moment we stepped off the plane we were surrounded by Italian American accents, New York accents and bagel and pretzel stands signaling quite forcefully that we weren’t in Kansas Georgia anymore. The heat was oppressive as we waited for our cab to Manhattan. Turned out the guy shafted us on the road tolls – the helpful info screen in the back of the car said that cabbies have to use their EZPass and “pass on the toll discount in full to the customer,” adding the toll sum to the final meter reading. Either our guy didn’t have an EZPass or something else, but he asked us for the $5.50 in cash, and I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

We’d both read things about the rooms in the Hudson Hotel being “tiny” and “horrible” but to be honest if you’re spending time in your hotel room in any big city, you’re doing it wrong. That’s why I was ok with our small but comfortable room. It didn’t fit much aside from a bed, and opening up suitcases meant you had to think which way you walked, but it was all ok. Most everyone in NYC lives in pocky little places anyway, it’s not like you can expect enormous caverns like our room in Manassas. Once we settled in we decided on a place for a drink and dinner thanks to a guide book we’d picked up while waiting for our plane in Atlanta.

Given that we hadn’t had a chance to have a drink at the taproom in Asheville, it was nice to go to a beer pub and actually enjoy what was on offer. The Blind Tiger was a pub in the way Americans make them. They emulate the British pubs in the wood paneling and dark interiors, but somehow over- or underdo it, meaning you thoroughly enjoy yourself but think it’s not entirely natural. They had an impressive selection of beers up on the board, clearly constantly changing. When I asked what sort of beer the seasonal peach beer was, though, the barmaid kind of repeated exactly what was on the board (”It’s kind of… a kind of tart, bitter… tart peach”). Oh well, I got that one and a Brooklyn-based beer given that I did want to try local stuff. They were both all right.

Sadly, the place we’d scouted out for dinner ended up being closed. The Blind Tiger is just across from a legendary pizzeria, John’s, and we could have returned there had we not walked a few blocks already. We ended up eating thoroughly pleasant pasta in a lower east side Italian place, where we watched an American man squirm through a business dinner with Chinese men, outnumbered five to one, with only one of them speaking English audibly. Must have been an uncomfortable time. After he’d escorted them out, he returned to settle the bill, and sat reading a newspaper on his iPad for a long time. I like to think he had a drink to calm himself down, too. Poor guy.

Travel always wears you out, as does the heat. Meandering back toward the subway stop we got out at, we stopped at a Starbucks for one of their cold ice teas to chill us out a bit. It must have been 10pm but still incredibly hot, with all buildings and the streets radiating heat even without the air conditioning exhusts blowing at you from every direction. There, sitting, watching the traffic quiet down, and young people hang around the corner entrance to the subway, with an unmistakeably New York skyline in the background, I felt pretty cool. New York City was pretty much exactly as I thought it would be.

The hotel breakfast was ridiculously overpriced and I don’t think we woke up in time anyway. Feeling tender but most likely legal to drive, I settled behind the wheel while some of the people from the previous night loaded up into the car with us. One had been to Atlanta before, so knew to suggest the largest drive-in in the world, The Varsity. I couldn’t contemplate anything better than consuming hot dogs smothered in chili, so I commandeered the decision despite the feeble and hungover protestations of the group’s only vegetarian. Ordering for her ended up being a mission, though.

The place was insane. We could have parked at the drive-in where middle-aged men in paper hats and aprons would come and take our orders, but for reasons of space (5 people in a hire car eating hot dogs) went upstairs to the “restaurant”. Long lines snaked to each of the two dozen cashiers, with a woman yelling “move on down, move on down” much more forcefully than all London tube ushers put together. Dutifully we did, with me getting a meal that makes me feel vaguely ill now just thinking back to it. As we tried to get a grilled cheese and some salad for the vegetarian who was by now looking a bit green, we discovered the guy had served her a chicken sandwich (”grilled chicken” sounding like “grilled cheese”??) and the salad eventually came with a load of chicken dumped on top. Going on a rescue mission, I managed to catch a friend at the counter just as he was ordering, and he offered to get a sandwich without the chicken this time.

Any description I give of the Varsity will not do it justice. I’m sure there are videos of it on the internet, but they won’t convey the masses of people in Atlanta Braves clothing queueing up for their Sunday staples. In a way I’m glad I went but at the same time I was thoroughly, thoroughly disturbed by the experience. At least we got a moment to breathe out of the noise since we decided to sit in the parking lot through one of the most severe rainstorms I’d ever seen battered central Atlanta for about twenty minutes after we finished eating. It was interesting seeing the buildings across the road disappear into a gray mist as the rain blew over us, overflowing sewers and soaking everything in its path.

Something even more troubling than the Varsity was our next stop on the tour, the $15 a head World of Coca-Cola. Being headquartered in Atlanta, Coca-Cola is such an institution there that any soda is just referred to as “Coke” in the region. Along with the Atlanta Aquarium, the place is a chief Atlanta attraction, and I guess it was only appropriate to try and do some touristy things. I never expected to be quite so thoroughly bombarded into consumption submission, though. Almost prophetically, as if discouraging us from entering, the peppy ticket cashier asked where we were from. I said Finland and it was easier to not specify anything else. “Oh wow, Fin-laaand! Welcome to America! Go shopping! Eat pizza!” she crooned at me. No, I was going to Coke World instead.

“WHO’S READY TO OPEN A BOTTLE OF HAPPINESS?!” the host yelled after they had herded us into a trophy room at the start of the tour, and had called out for places people were coming from. At this point, our bloodshot and confused eyes were meeting each other in looks of concern and distress. It didn’t let up at all throughout the tour. The first real stop was sitting through a “documentary” about the “employees of the Happiness Factory“, the grotesque cartoon characters supposedly inhabiting the Coke vending machines. I wish I could have seen the irony.

Herded through exhibits of memorabilia, a “4d film” with moving seats and spraying water about “the secret ingredient” that makes Coke special (you, the consumer), and an example bottling plant, we finally came to the fountain section, where some 80 different Coca-Cola company products were available for tasting. They ranged from the nice (vanilla Coke) to the nigh-on-unfathomably-undrinkable (a Djiboutian mint soda that tasted so strongly of mouthwash it was a challenge to try and swallow). At least it got our blood sugar levels up, if the hot dogs and ridiculously sweet orange soda at the Varsity hadn’t done that.

After those two separate assaults on the senses, I am surprised I was capable of driving, first to the MARTA stop to drop off a friend who had a plane to catch, and then to sit somewhere quieter to contemplate what we’d just experienced in the last 24 hours. It took a while, and we only left when they started putting together a campaign meeting for a democratic candidate for Georgia governor. (Speaking of the gubernatorial primaries, the ads on TV were something else. Personal attacks against other candidates within the same party, as well as references to God and piety in personal statements are things you don’t see in Europe.)

Twenty miles of driving later we were back in the hotel in Marietta, packing and getting ready for one more night in the South, and one last morning with our Buick that had taken us over 1000 miles by that point.

My friend’s wedding day unfurled into a stark reminder that I’d had a few more odd American craft beers than I thought, and that they hadn’t skimped on the whiskey in the whiskey and coke that ended the night. We’d agreed on a post-breakfast sauna to pass the time until the wedding, and so that’s what I met up with the groom, the best man, and some other guests for. Luckily we had had the presence of mind to stuff the rest of the previous night’s pizza dinner into the hotel room fridge, as this was one of those times you really needed a stern breakfast.

Of course, the sauna was… not one I’d call a sauna though the manufacturer’s name was a reference to Finland. Not that our sauna manner was appropriate either. In keeping with his ways the groom came up with a jingle to go with our experience, so every time we threw water on the rocks, we stood up (them as a test of endurance, me to just enjoy a touch of the heat a proper löyly should be and he’d sing “living in a microwave” to the tune of a song I instantly recognised but can’t place now. It was that kind of morning.
(See comments below, the tune for our jingle was the chorus line from James Brown’s Living in America).

After a couple of rounds of sauna and swimming (with no shower facilities in sight so we must have breathed near-lethal doses of chlorine gas off ourselves) I was ready to hit the shower up in the hotel room. We escorted the groom through the hotel, with a towel on his head so he wouldn’t even accidentally catch a glimpse of his wife-to-be. Leaving him in the capable hands of the best man, I settled into the nervous wait through the time before it makes sense to get dressed up in my suit and tie. The air conditioning in the hotel was fine for wearing one, but the first step outside, even in a linen and silk suit, was deeply unpleasant. Thirty-odd degrees centigrade, high humidity and semiformal wear just don’t go well together.

The ceremony and reception were held in Marietta Square, a historical bit of town just across from the railway. We arrived way early, and sheepishly asked a gentleman in a white suit standing by a flower-decorated gazebo whether we were in the right place. He assured we were, and we fell into conversation with a policeman also observing. He was really friendly, and talked about having been born in the UK and about the issues applying for citizenship posed. The moment I noticed the .44 caliber gun hanging loosely in a holster at his side I became a tiny bit tense though, which I hope didn’t show. It’s everyday life there, but I still get struck at guns being carried openly, which nearly never happens in Europe.

The groom arrived first, with his father and the best man, dropped off by limousine. They stood in silence, waiting for the second limo carrying the bride. As she stepped out and he went over to walk her over to the gazebo, a guitarist started playing the Jurassic Park theme song. For those that know the couple, it was pretty much the only appropriate thing to play at the time, and we did smile quite widely. I suspect that for others who did not recognise the tune, it was just a pretty melody played on a guitar to accompany the procession. Shame about it being so quiet, though.

After the couple said their vows (much more audibly than the priest leading them through the ceremony, clearly they were mindful of the audience!) they came down to have some pictures taken, while shooing us guests to the reception itself. Held at the top floor of the theater nearby, there was a roof terrace overlooking the square with soft drinks. The beer and wine flowing indoors got peoples’ tongues moving, and soon we were engaged in conversation among our table of friends and new acquaintances. I liked the fact that there was no set seating order. This allowed people to walk around and chat. I got cornered several times by the father of the bride, having had a few drinks, demanding to know what I’d thought of driving through his home state (Virginia) and whether I’d visited specific locations (no, Sir, but I’m sure we will the next time. Oh yes, there will be a next time, Sir. Thank you for your hospitality).

Having been the chief reason for our drive Southward, it was quite amazing how quickly the actual night progressed. The next thing I knew we were onto speeches (the groom, the father of the bride, the best man, the bridesmaids) along with a video message from the groom’s best friend currently employed in Afghanistan. All in all it was a really warm-hearted and sweet affair, with loads of attention being lavished onto us “English” guests who’d “driven all the way from England”. Not long after that, the band had packed up and a vintage Rolls Royce came to whisk the couple away on their honeymoon (to Costa Rica the next morning). The rest of us continued the party at a nearby bar.

At this point things were a little bit on the wane, despite the delicious barbecue-type food on offer at the reception. In fact, a collective decision, made more or less consciously of its implications, was made to continue at the hotel bar, from where it would be easier to end up in bed. It was easier on the ears, too, as there was a seriously loud country/folk/punk band playing indoors. It must have been the heat of the day and the whole proceedings, but I was so completely exhausted at that point that all I wanted was a nice comfortable bed and some peace and quiet.

The breakfast at Fiddler’s Roost was to die for. Just right with the sweetness, syrupy banana pancake type bread things got us set up for the road, which we hit before 11am. We had our lunch packed from the previous night’s dinner, so decided to find somewhere nice to have it. The Blue Ridge Parkway had picnic tables at pretty much every overlook and stopping place, but as we were diverting from it, we had to find somewhere else. That, we decided, would be in Tennessee, because adding another state to our trip would be funny. Driving on winding mountain roads with seemingly endless blind corners, through “towns” that seemed to consist of a T-junction with a ramshackle country store in one corner, and through numerous agricultural fields showed the differences between states that otherwise may look superficially similar. Tennessee really seemed poorer than Virginia had. Another interesting point was the change of the price of fuel between state lines: Taxation must have been that much higher in North Carolina to raise the price per gallon by 20 cents.

Eventually, no thanks to our satellite navigator friend, we made it to the edge of the Cherokee National Forest and the picnic spot marked on our road map. It was a really hot day, as they have been throughout our stay here, except of course in high altitudes. After lunch of the previous day’s salads eaten off paper plates bought at a gas station where I managed to misread the meter reading by a full $10, confusing the attendant and making her think I was trying to fib her, we hit the road again, winding down the scenic route through the Southern Tennessee and northern North Carolina . It really was really beautiful, with green hills, sunshine and the occasional jaw-dropping view of a valley ringed by mountains.

Hot Springs, NC is a Small Town. The manager of our bed and breakfast was also the head of the local tourist association and several town and county projects, and the place only had two restaurants that remained open after lunch. We ate at the Iron Horse, where the service was excellent and friendly, the food unbelievably generously portioned and good-tasting. But, compared to the excellent Alejandro’s in Roanoke a few days before, we ended up paying double. While we were having dinner, an amazingly long coal train thundered through the train tracks crossing the town, rocking the entire place. American train tracks seem to be built alongside rivers, I suppose because of the relative flatness of the land. It is interesting though because the tracks would be at risk of any flood, being so close to the stream.

Friday morning we had an early breakfast and set out on the last, relatively long stretch of this trip to Atlanta. I had been recommended by some people on the Forums that Asheville, North Carolina is a “liberal” cute mountain city that would be worth a visit. Sadly we didn’t have time to stay for longer, because I did like the feel of the place. Sure, some of the shops were the typical tye-dye dress/astrology stone/new-age type of places but the atmosphere seemed pretty laid-back and cool. We stopped for a quick drink at a pub (called a Taproom in this part of the world) that got me regretting we hadn’t time to stay for longer: Several dozen local beers, and dozens more other American beers, not to mention the standard imports, all under one roof! I do like my beer, and being on the road meant we couldn’t have a drink. Luckily, there was a stroke of genius – we asked the cute server whether we could get local beers anywhere nearby, and got the address to Green Life. What a hippie food store! It was like a Whole Foods for tattooed twenty-something vegetarians (and aficionados of prime meat). As we were puzzling the choices at the wall of ales, a guy in a Dr Pepper shirt came up and struck up a conversation about his preferences, including a recommendation for a Asheville Brewing Company beer commemorating Bob Moog, with proceeds going to the Moog foundation. I had no idea that Moog was an Asheville resident! Turned out the guy giving us recommendations didn’t work there at all, but just happened to look like an employee thanks to his shirt. I guess that kind of describes the feeling in Asheville – just generally friendly and laid back.

Having stocked up on several North Carolina beers, including a two-gallon (2 liter!) jug of Pisgah Brewery’s “Endless Summer” in the back of the car, we hit the Interstate on a last dash to Atlanta. The first hundred miles went by in a flash, but the last fifty to Atlanta suburbs was slow going, first due to an accident on the road, then because of roadworks and then plain old fashioned Friday rush-hour. Finally, though, we were in the hotel parking lot, feeling the Georgia heat and humidity, ready to check in. By sheer luck the bride and groom whose wedding we were due to attend happened to be preparing for a practice dinner, which means we actually got some details about the wedding program since thanks to Royal Mail our invitation had never actually arrived.

As we had settled into our room and were toasting the end of the road trip, the groom arrived after his dinner, slightly nervous. We shared some of the beer we’d thrown into the fridge and showed him a DVD with greetings from his London friends we’d brought with us. I met some of the other guests and the best man, and we made a date to go for a swim and a sauna in the morning (yes, sauna in the morning!). It must be an interesting time knowing that in less than 24h later you are to be married, and planning for the time until then must be weird.