Atlanta Day 1: Arrival

Getting to San Francisco airport on Saturday was a piece of cake. I'd normally take the CalTrain-BART-AirTrain connection, which is actually much more efficient than it sounds. Instead, however, I remembered getting a card in the mail announcing SamTrans had started a new express bus line that runs past my apartment, connected to other CalTrain stations, BART, the airport, and San Francisco. Since the announcement came with a free ticket and the schedule looked slightly nicer than my series of trains, I decided to take it. It worked great. The bus was on time to the minute and went, effectively, directly to the airport. And I saved about four dollars. :) (My series of trains cost four dollars; SamTrans would normally cost just under two, but I rode free.)

My flight, direct to Atlanta, was equally nice. In fact, I couldn't ask for a better seat -- I sat in the window seat of an exit row (and hence had lots of leg room) and had an empty middle seat next to me.

The flight’s stewardpeople spoke with a slight Southern twang. They also said “yes sir” quite often. It was a pleasant feature which helped me get into the mood for this trip.

On the flight, I ate a turkey, cheddar, asparagus, and sun-dried tomato wrap. It was fine.

Atlanta’s airport is bland. I knew it was one of the world’s busiest airports and therefore I’d hoped that would mean someone spent the time to make it interesting. I was wrong. Also, it didn't seem busy to me, though that could be simply because I landed on a Saturday evening.

After landing, I picked up my rental car, briefly explored the Atlanta State Farmer's Market (at which I took two pictures), and returned to the airport to pick up Di Yin, the friend who’d explore some of Atlanta with me. The farmers market was supposedly open twenty-four hours but, as you can tell from the pictures, it really wasn't.

We headed to our hotel, a Marriott Courtyard. When we found it, we were told there wasn't a reservation for us, and that perhaps we had intended to go to the other Courtyard another two miles up the road!

After checking in to the correct hotel, we went out for dinner, ending up at a Waffle House. Here's my review.