New Years Eve 2007: Lisa, Charlie, Bob, Me, baby Ashok, Shalini, and Brian
Bob and I have a tradition of ringing in the new year with a group of friends we have come to refer to as the New Years Eve Posse. The gathering has taken place in various cities and towns across the country and this year we got together in Atlanta at Charlie's mom's house. Most years, at least one person is sick and by then end of the visit, we're all sick or we get sick as soon as we get home. This year we reached new and unprecedented levels of sickness. Before we even gathered, everyone except for Bob had, at the very least, a cold. The most miraculous display of sickness and recovery was by Charlie, who around 6:00 P.M. on Sunday said "I'm going to go crash for a minute," and didn't emerge until 2:00 P.M. the next day, at which point he ate a bowl of ice cream and seemed perfectly healthy.
I think Charlie's recovery had a lot to do with the impending trip to one of Atlanta's best attractions, the New World of Coca-Cola. I can't say that I loved the World of Coke, but it was definitely interesting. As soon as you walk in, you have to go into this theater and watch an extremely strange animated short film that is basically just Coke propaganda. After that, you're free to walk around and look at various Coke memorabilia, very old Coke machines and the like. You can also get your picture taken with the Coca-cola Polar Bear.
The best part of the World of Coke is most definitely the tasting room. In the tasting room, one can sample Coca-cola products from around the world. I thought that the best (or rather least disgusting) sodas were from Latin America. By far the worst was a soda called Beverly and it was from Italy. I don't know what it was supposed to taste like, but it was really gross. Once you get all sugared up in the tasting room, you are directed into the Coke store where you can get all manner of Coke paraphernalia. Lisa tried to find a Coke toothbrush, but strangely, the didn't have any. They did have Dasani water flavored lip gloss. I was curious to see what plain water flavor would be, but I bought a diet Coke t-Shirt instead.
There are several stations like this with cokes from Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America, and Europe
My trip to Atlanta wasn't just about Coke. Before Charlie crashed, he offered to take me a yarn store and the one closest to his mom's house happened to be a very good one. I also visited a couple of excellent LYS in the Bay Area, but I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of my goodies. Maybe tomorrow. I'm still recovering from the sickest new years ever.