Atlanta Trip 2016

We spent the past ten days vacationing in and around Atlanta.

We flew out the evening of Thursday, the 25th of August 2016. Mummy, Ancy and I took an Uber to midway airport. The flight out was pretty cool. We rented a car from National in Hartsfield airport.

I had booked an Air BnB in downtown. It took us some time to locate the place (300 peachtree towers) but the place was pretty good. It was a nice and cozy one-bedroom apartment with 2 extra beds in the living room.

The next day, we went to Georgia Tech. We walked around and met a couple of my friends and professors. Then, we had lunch at the student center. Mummy and Ancy took an uber back to the hotel. I met with Anton and had a quick call with Prof. Ravi.

In the evening, we went for the event. It was in Ashiana. Ancy wore her red churidaar and I wore the mundu-jubba. Most of the invited people had come. We started with a short prayer by Achen and then we had buffet dinner.

Eva, Mathew Paul's daughter, sang a beautiful song - every day in my dreams, I see you.." Brian's brothers had also come. In the evening, we settled the accounts and left to the AirBnB.

The next day we had breakfast from the corner bakery cafe across the street. Then I went to tech to work with Anton. Ancy and Mummy went to georgia aquarium and world of coke.

During the morning I met with Chris and Anton. We discussed the paper for a bit. Anton and I had lunch at Fresh to go where Bonetto also joined us. We then walked back to tech and discussed paper 2. Finally, in the evening, Ancy and mummy took an Uber to tech.

Then we went to Ison uncles'. On the way there, we had dinner at Kerala Kitchen. Abraham and Greg joined us.

On Sunday, we went to church. had lunch at the church. They gave us a small gift.

In the evening, we had dinner at Prof. Tovey's.  We met Gail, his wife and William in youngest son. It was a great dinner. We talked for hours. We had a great conversation. We returned to Ison uncle's to stay the night.

Monday, we set off to Gatlinburg. We reached there by evening. We took the sky lift in the night. and had dinner at a chinese place (which was horrible).

The next day, we did some shopping. Got the name plate carved on wood and got gifts for Ison uncle's 25th wedding anniversary. Then we saw the world of illusions - a place with lots of optical and other illusions.

Next we drove back to Atlanta. We had dinner at Agish's. his parents were also there. Manu, Jane and baby Nora joined us.

We stayed the night at Radisson Hotel Marietta.

The next morning we went to Ruby falls. Ancy and Mummy really liked the underground falls. We followed it up with incline point - where we saw the really steep incline railway - and rock city. Rock city was really beautiful and really peaceful. We drove back to Atlanta and had dinner at Yeldo Saijus.

We stayed back at the Radisson hotel.


Thursday morning we checked out and went to Perimeter mall. I went to the barnes and noble near there where I used to sit and study during Ph.D. times.

After that we went to Abey-shoba's house for dinner. It was my first time there - they have built a really nice big house. We saw Abey's art work and enjoyed shoba's cooking. We stayed there overnight.

Had breakfast in the morning. Then we went to dahlonega. There we saw the gold museum and bought some small gifts for Mathew's kids.

For lunch, we drove back to Atlanta, to Mathew's house. Had lunch with them and had tea. Had a nice chat.

In the evening, we went to Ison uncle's house and had dinner there. Aunty had made nice duck curry and pine apple curry.

The next morning, Scariakkutty uncle and his wife drove up from South Carolina. We had a quick lunch and left for lunch with Vishrut and Andres-Stefania in Chatt Patti near cheriyan's. It was great as usual.

Finally, we drove back to the airport. The flight was quick - we had strong tailwind and we arrived almost half hour early. We took an Uber back home.

We had a quick dinner - warm rice and curd. And we all went to sleep, exhausted but happy.

Gold Coast Arts Fair

This is from a couple of weekends ago. 


Happened to stumble into the Gold Coast arts fair. Spent about three hours there.


It was pretty neat. Some of the work that I liked in particular are:


Nha Vuu - she had some very beautiful abstract paintings - the abstraction coming from everyday scenes, like roof tops.


Julie Reed had some very nice chinese ink paintings. 


Mark Thomas had photographs of Indian scenes - monks, ganges etc. 


However,  Iris Mansard's work was the most interesting. She had painted raincoats. It was an amazing display of how art can transform some everyday boring but functional thing into an interesting fashion statement. She also happened to be a fan of sai baba, had visited India and ended up speaking a little bit about Sai Baba.

Millennium Park

Visited the Millennium Park this afternoon. It was simply amazing.

Michigan avenue was like a great divider - on the west are all tall sky scrapers, one the east is greenery. 

The famous Bean is here. It was very interesting to see that a simple idea like that could be so powerful people magnet. I think it is the different perspectives and distortions that it provides. Also, the architect has been very smart about providing an inner recess (second picture) so that though the Bean is completely reflective, its contours are always very clear. Also, the participatory nature adds to the appeal - people can go near it, touch it, stand under it, kiss it, do whatever....

This last point was also evident in the other works there. For example the crown fountain. It is a giant water wall made of glad panels which are lit from behind by LEDs. It displays faces of everyday Chicagoans. There are two level of participation here - the pictures themselves and that people can go play in the fountain.