My Triumphant Return!

I am now home from Atlanta, and good times were had.  The city was nice, I only had severe anxiety issues once, and OMGOSHTINYGORILLAYAY.  But I'll get to that.

I ran into some of my pet peeves, namely that Hotels Do Not Need To Charge Twenty Bucks For Every Single Little Thing You Do.  Blurg.  One of the fun things about Dad being a lawyer is that he frequently goes to Lawyer Conferences, which are held at nice hotels so that people will have a reason to come.  So I have been to nice hotels.  Many of them had this feature in common: they did not charge for wireless.  I have also been to many standard hotels, and a few hotels where the beds were Pre Hair Covered For Your Convenience.  As I recall, these places did not charge for wireless either, though to be fair that was not always what I was focused on.  (It's difficult to think about the internet when the carpet sticks to your feet).

But the rest of the hotel was nice, even if THEY CHARGED FIFTEEN BUCKS FOR A DAY OF WIRELESS THAT'S ENOUGH FOR SEVERAL BOOKS ON THE CIVIL WAR.  It had a rotating restaurant on the top, which was terrifying but had decent food and an incredible view when I could convince myself to look at it.  And we didn't fly down there, so I suppose I had to have my requisite Terrifying High Up Experience sometime.

The tourist destinations were nice if crowded.  The aquarium was astonishing.  There were belugas, and jellies, and absolutely adorable otters.  The Coke place was basically a giant commercial, but it was at least a decent giant commercial that gave out free soft drinks.

And the zoo.  Omigosh, the zoo.

There was, of course, the baby panda, but while it was absolutely adorable it was also sleeping with its back to the audience.  I completely understand why it was doing this and everything, but all the same it wasn't something you could stare at for more than a couple of hours.

But the gorillas. 

There were several- I don't think they were quite baby gorillas, but kid gorillas, at least.  Very cute.  Two of them were wresling and shoving each other off of rocks, but a third was sitting in the corner eating.  After a while the rambunctious apes came over near the third one to annoy an adult gorilla, and the quiet one stood up, clearly having none of this.  And there are few things more adorable than a tiny little gorilla standing up, pounding its hands on its chest and then clapping.

And then today it sleeted after we came out of the CNN building.  Seriously.  We come home to Charlotte, and it's much warmer here.  I feel like I need to explain the concepts of "spring" and "southern" to Atlanta.

Oh- and I got the first season of JLI, but Mom says I can't have it until Easter.