Atlanta: emptiness, peaches, and a reimagined nightmare
The last time I drove had been ten years prior, more or less. That is, if we don’t count the pathetic refresher lessons I took a few years after moving to the UK. All I remember from those lessons is the pale face of the instructor gently reminding me to keep to the left on roundabouts, and the sweat slowly creeping down my back. Trying to put all this in the back of my mind, I loosened my grip on the steering wheel slightly, breathing in and breathing out, like all the meditation teachers out there have always told me to do. As usual, the whole meditation thing was trumped by my intrusive thoughts. I tried to swat them away like mosquitoes on a hike, but of course, they found their way back to my face somehow. The main intrusive thought finding its way to my brain was my dad’s voice telling me not to use my left foot in any way, shape, or form. Ever. “Why?” I kept asking myself, trying to delay the moment when my right foot would finally push down to make the car move forward. “I guess I’ll just have to trust him on this,” I reasoned, before slowly but surely leaving the rental car parking lot on my way out of Atlanta.
But let’s rewind—the road trip I had so ardently awaited can wait for a moment. First, let’s take a closer look at The Big Peach and all the ways I found myself wondering why, in the first place, I ended up there.
I should have realised that Atlanta isn’t exactly a tourist destination on its own—at least not in the conventional sense—when we were among the few passengers leaving the airport instead of catching a connecting flight to somewhere else, probably somewhere better. Atlanta’s airport, the hub of Delta, is one of the busiest and most chaotic in America. It’s so vast that I felt unsettled when I couldn’t figure out where to catch the bus from the first terminal to the second, and then how to get the Metro into Downtown Atlanta. Once on the Metro, the usual scenes of the “other side” of the big American city slowly unfolded: people living in the underground world, going from carriage to carriage with large, impractical belongings, asking for change, and met with the indifference of tourists and locals just going about their lives. It’s always a stark eye-opener whenever I visit the States: poverty over there carries an even sadder weight to it.
For the purpose of our Deep South road trip, it made a lot of sense to start from Atlanta. The only issue was finding a place to stay that made sense, too. We were well aware that American cities aren’t like their European counterparts in that they don’t have a centralised ‘city centre,’ but Atlanta takes this concept to a whole other level. We had a downtown and a midtown, but both areas seemed extremely sleepy, with few people around, not many places you could eat at, and nothing to do. Especially after a long flight, we were craving a good, big American meal to kick off our long-awaited trip in style. Unfortunately, the options were so meagre that we ended up in an average-looking Mexican restaurant, eating oversized burritos and, of course, having to tip 20%! I had forgotten how, for some strange reason, the tip percentage seems to skyrocket every year over there.
Jet lag is never our friend, but when travelling westbound, it becomes our best mate. Up well before 6:30 the next morning, we were ready for a hearty American breakfast, and I was particularly excited to try those juicy peaches I had heard so much about. We set out for Atlanta Breakfast Club, which had been recommended by a few Atlanta TikTokers (yes, I’m still young enough to keep up with the times). Not surprisingly, we were the first to arrive on a crispy Tuesday morning in March.
The waiter welcomed us and showed us to our table. We glanced at the menu, but it was no use: I was of course going for the peach cinnamon French toast, and my boyfriend was of course opting for chicken and waffles. We were in America, after all; we were ready to eat a lot. The food was, of course, fantastic, but I was also waiting for the inevitable “Why are you in Atlanta?” interaction, which finally came from our waiter. He was an actor from Florida who had moved to Atlanta because, as he put it, “I was robbed at gunpoint in Miami and said, ‘Nah, I’ve had enough. I don’t want to raise my kid in that place.’” He placed our sugar-overloaded meals in front of us and added, “Let me know if you want a coffee top-up,” before leaving us to enjoy our meal. Was he sharing his story because he liked to talk, or was he revealing the most tragic part of his life to earn some extra tips? Either way, the tipping galore had begun. We grabbed a takeout coffee each and set off to explore a city still asleep.
It was a cold morning, with the steam rising from our coffee cups as undeniable proof. This warmth, along with our brisk walking pace, carried us from the eerie, boarded-up former CNN building to the high-tech Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The walk was pleasant, with literally nobody else around. Above us, the American sky - one of my favourite things about the country - slowly deepened into a gorgeous blue as the dawn colours of yellow and pink faded away. We looped back to Centennial Park (not the same one Taylor Swift sings about) and waited a few minutes for the World of Coca-Cola to open. I kept thinking how strange it was that the main attraction of the city would be a tribute to capitalism. Then I paused and reflected: I was in the United States. I needed to shift my perspective and not view everything through my European-shaped glasses.
Okay, I was wrong. I was actually wrong to downplay America’s thirst for ultra-capitalism. Trust me, visit the World of Coca-Cola and then we can talk about it. After paying our $18 entrance fee each, we were herded like cattle into a room displaying advertisements of the brand from all over the world, plastered on everything imaginable. There were stickers from different years on a series of French bottles, giant and creepy stuffed animals, even red Coca-Cola-themed fridges. But that wasn’t even the worst part. After a brief explanation by the guide, we were whisked away into a theatre room where they showed us -yes, you guessed it - more Coca-Cola advertisements, including a soppy story about a kid welcoming his father back from a military expedition somewhere he probably shouldn’t have gone. Needless to say, I didn’t shed a tear. Instead, I cursed the moment we decided to visit this so-called “museum” (and I use the term loosely here). Just when I thought the worst was over, we left the theatre only to find ourselves surrounded by high school kids on an “educational” trip. The educational element seemed to consist of trying out hundreds of flavours of the drink. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the teacher responsible for taking them back on the bus after this. We left after sampling a few flavours, with more questions than answers, and a sugar crash looming on the horizon.
Leaving behind this extreme kind of capitalist experience, we finally went to a place I was genuinely interested in: the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. This museum did not disappoint. It offered a deep dive into the Civil Rights movement and provided an educational experience I had been longing for. I particularly loved the Martin Luther King Jr. exhibition on the lower ground floor. The room was enveloped by his powerful words playing from a loudspeaker, a video projection of his speeches, and many of his original writings displayed in glass cases. The invitation to silence was so fitting, especially in a city like Atlanta, which witnessed significant historical events, both good and bad. The museum gave me such an excellent introduction to this crucial period in American history, allowing me to deepen my knowledge when it comes to the Civil Rights movement and to continue our Deep South road trip feeling a bit more ready. We left a couple of hours later, the sun high in the mid-afternoon sky as we went back for a wander about Centennial Olympic Park, a lasting memory of the 1996 Olympics, before sitting down to plan our next steps in our hotel room.
So, after a day of sightseeing, there I was, practically paralysed with nerves, sitting in the driver’s seat at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car parking lot on Courtland Street. I knew I was about to dive into the chaos that is the Atlanta highway system, meaning lanes upon lanes of relentless, crazy traffic where people overtake you with ease, cut across cars to exit, and mindlessly make you jump with their honking. All of this awaited me just beyond the parking lot I was slowly crawling out of. The mantra kept echoing in my brain: don't use your left foot, don't use your left foot, don't use your left foot. Finally, I rolled out of the parking bay and onto the main road, approaching my first traffic light. The amber light was slowly turning to red. “I can do this. This is easy,” I said to myself and Dylan, trying to show some confidence, as it was the first time ever that he saw me drive. And then, in a spectacular moment of panic, I instinctively used my left foot to brake. Let's just say, we definitely stopped. More like slammed to a halt. My heart was racing, Dylan was a bit shocked by the impact, and my confidence was slowly fading away. Who knew driving could feel like learning to walk all over again? And in our case, a walk which would last over 2000 kms.
