Florida Part I

When we first arrived in Oveido it was about dinner time so we didn't do much of anything. I did finally get to meet the the squeeze's famous Babka though, at the ripe age of 94 she is the peppiest grandmother I have ever encountered! I was also easily able to meet the other portion of their big family because all the ladies live in the same retirement community. Not only that, but they are also neighbors. And three out of four of them are named Anna Placko. They told us their mail gets mixed up and they receive phone calls for each other frequently, no surprise there.

The next full day we spent hanging out with these vibrant ladies, we have Anna Placko (Babka, they call her Anna B. Placko because her maiden name starts with a B), Anna Placko (we call her TA, short for teta Ancha in Slovak, or aunt Anna, she is Babka's sister-in-law), Anna Placko (just Anna, she is also Babka's sister-in-law), and Vera (Babka's actual sister). Milly, or Milka, who is TA's niece was also visiting from Delaware so we essentially stayed with five ladies for six days.

After settling in we headed to the parks! Day one we made our way to Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studios. I haven't been to Disney in almost 20 years, not since my parents took me as a buffer after their divorce. I remember it being a great experience, minus a few bumps in the road like when our rental car was hit or the occasional argument between them.

I was pretty ecstatic when the squeeze and I got to Animal Kingdom, I've never actually been to this park so it was a great first time experience. At some point it rained. I mean it poured. We invested in Disney ponchos, wise choice on our part as it rained the next two days as well. We became so used to the rain it was easy to ignore that our shoes were squishy with water.

After a long half day at Animal Kingdom we made our way to what was formally known as MGM. Disney Hollywood Studios is wonderful, I love the roaring 20's theme throughout the park. We stopped and grabbed Mickey Mouse ice-cream per suggestion of the squeeze's dad and browsed the 'streets' of the park.

We managed to nab two seats at the Sci-fi Dine-in Theater Restaurant, it's basically this massive indoor drive-in movie theater set that's a restaurant. The cars are the tables and there is a large movie screen that was constantly plays 20's themed cartoons, clips, and commercials, it was such a cool set-up! The squeeze was adamant about eating here but I didn't know why, I'm so glad he pushed to come here!

And of course we had to go on the Tower of Terror multiple times! It's just as spooky as I remember, one of my favorites to date. I love rides that make even the experience leading up to the actual ride memorable. We didn't get home until about midnight, and then we did that two more times in four other parks. We've covered more ground in two weeks than I have ever!

Savannah

Having internet access recently has been tough to find! Currently we are in Oveido, Florida with the squeeze's grandmother, at the moment I'm taking advantage of the router at TA's home down the road (the squeeze's great aunt). 

Leaving Atlanta and entering Savannah was the strangest thing ever, two completely different landscapes! The city with its huge skyscrapers and crowded highway turned into palm trees and quaint brick buildings, the moment we reached Savannah I could tell immediately where we were. Our hotel was in the Historic District which is by the river, the style of architecture along the streets and endless heaps of Spanish Moss drooping from the trees made it look like it was time for Halloween. I loved the spooky vibe!

We walked for quite a ways after grabbing some real southern Po' Boys at the Cotton Exchange, it eventually got dark but we weren't ready to crawl back into bed. We saw several horse drawn carriages lined up along a brick road so we took advantage of a tour while it was dark out. This little guy's name is Robin, apparently he has an older brother named Batman, how adorable!

After our epic horse drawn carriage tour (which we learned that Savannah is basically built on top of a bunch of dead people) we stopped for some ice-cream at Leopold's, the honey almond cream was to die for! The ice-cream shop is right across the street from SCAD, apparently the school purchases properties in the city and fixes them up so they are active within the community. This also means that many random buildings have "SCAD" on them so at first we weren't sure what was part of the campus... I still don't think I figured it out.

The architecture here is beautiful! Every block has a "square" in the center which resembles a mini Central Park with a monument located in the middle. The foliage here is also beautiful, enormous aloe plants, large curvy trees, and piles of Spanish Moss looming overhead. Below is the Mercer Williams House, we're trying to find 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' to watch so we can see the building in the movie. A murder happened in this home, but after taking the horse drawn carriage tour we learned that people killed one another in many of the buildings so it's really no surprise.

We loved Savannah! I would move here in a heart beat, even the coffee shops were adorable (this is from inside The Coffee Fox). I'm sad we only spent one day here, I feel like we could have walked around for days just soaking everything in. I think we should plan another visit, we still need to actually get to Austin though before we can make any more travel plans! After Savannah we traveled to Oveido, we are leaving tomorrow to head to Tallahassee for one night, then it's New Orleans, Houston, and finally Austin. I have about a million photos from our three days in Disney and Universal, those will all need to be separate posts once we have internet again. Phew!

Atlanta

First thing's first, traveling from DC to Raleigh takes approximately four hours. I'm not sure if the planets were simply not in line for us, but it took a grueling eight hours to finally arrive at our hotel in NC. We hit three of the worst traffic jams I have ever experienced, literally hours of bumper to bumper traffic. I will never complain about the occasional 295 rush hour blip again. It was nearly 9pm when we arrived so the squeeze and I went straight to bed after gobbling some food down. 

The next morning I was dead set on seeing at least some of Raleigh while we were here, it seemed like a wasted trip if we didn't. So we headed downtown and snagged some delicious brunch at a local spot called Joule. It was super Portland-esque, we loved the vibe and it made us think of home. This was the only photo I managed to take of the city, shame on me, it was beautiful here!

Arriving in Atlanta was no joke either. Half-way through the eight hour drive my eyes started to get heavy so the squeeze and I swapped seats. Once we reached the city it was total chaos, cars weaved in and out of lanes blindly while doing 20 over the speed limit, it was a huge relief when we reached our hotel. **Note to selves, avoid major city driving during weekend nights at all costs**

Our hotel, the Marriott Marquis, had 42 floors. It's the biggest hotel I've ever stayed in, not to mention the most motion sickness inducing. Our room was on the 37th floor which gave us the most epic view! Staring up from the lobby was like looking at an optical illusion, and forget the elevators, I had to face the door every time we used them.

Our first full day we visited the Georgia Aquarium, it was glorious! There is such a huge variety of animals here, everything from Whale Sharks to Asian Otters. And the best part is that you can squish your face right up to the glass so the only thing separating you from three adorable Beluga Whales is a layer of heavy duty acrylic.

The most majestic of the views is the monstrous 6 million gallon tank that holds their four Whale Sharks, four Manta Rays, several sharks, and hundreds of fish. The squeeze and I could stand there for hours, it was so relaxing to watch all the sea creatures swim.

Remember when I said you could press your face up to the glass? That's what I did with this poor penguin, he or she was clearly trying to take a nap and I was trying everything in my power to get it to look over at me. Success!

Every time I've gone to the Boston Aquarium their lone octopus is squished in the corner of his dark and dismal tank, I've never seen him move in the several times I've been there. But low and behold, our first visit to the Georgia Aquarium and this guy was was energetically suction-cupping his way across the tank back and forth. There was a gentleman with his son who were both wearing 'member' lanyards, he said that in all the times he's visited he'd never seen the octopus out once, I guess we lucked out on this one!

The aquarium is organized so that the tropical sea life is one section, the other salt water creatures are in another, the whales have their own location etc, etc. They had a smaller closed in space with fresh water/river wild life, there they had a tank that housed not one, but two albino alligators. They had a spooky marble-like appearance with glassy pinkish eyes. They were patient for a while so I managed to snap a view photos, but slowly they made their way to the back and hid behind some artificial trees when a bunch of rambunctious kids arrived.

We ended the night with a hike up to the Sundial Restaurant on the 72nd floor of the Westin hotel. See those blurry red words in the bottom right corner? That's our hotel. I thought we were up high, but this place has almost twice as many floors. It was also a rotating restaurant so we got quite the 360 degree view.

This morning we left Atlanta and headed for Savannah, the big city was great; bold, bright, and beautiful. And also slightly scary at times. Being from Portland you feel like you can walk just about anywhere at any time, it's always a fresh reminder when you're in a new city that you're not in Kansas anymore.