USA - Always Coca-Cola

June 26

Hello everyone!

Georgia’s capital and largest city is Atlanta: home to over 6 million people in its metropolitan area and a few quite contrasting elements.

Little wonder Coca-Cola haven't contacted me for their next marketing campaing...

Footsteps of Rosa Parks: the civil rights movement has a deep history here

Atlanta is not a place that Hannah ever wants to visit. However, my keenness to visit the place known as A-T-L to locals (not Hot-lanta as I want to call it in these temperatures) at some point eventually led to us driving an hour south to downtown.

Traffic heading to Atlanta - it backed up when six lanes turned into five...

The pleasant and empty Centennial Olympic Park

Atlanta's metro area is the sixth-largest in the
USA, and by far the biggest I'll visit all summer

The common question is why you would actually visit it. It’s a city built for cars, even with a heavily-used metro system. It’s also not known as a must-see place to visit like New York, for example. 

Many big buildings include 'Peachtree' in their
name, as Georgia is known as the Peach State 

What Atlanta does have is the home base of probably the most iconic and famous drink brand in history.

One of many, many posters

An iconic bottle

Coca-Cola is synonymous with Atlanta, and it’s celebrated in the World of Coca-Cola, which can be found downtown. It’s quite a chaotic place that tries to mix telling the history of the drink whilst hosting interactive sections to showcase different senses.

John Pemberton 'created' the mixture in 1886, selling it soon after for $2300

A 1980s advert in Egypt for the drink

Coca-Cola was created by a man called John S. Pemberton in May 1886. It was originally sold from a pharmacy as a sort of medicine. The recipe was kept secret and the drink has flourished to become ubiquitous around the world.

Limited editions have been commonly used by Coca-Cola -
these showcase local businesses like Delta Airlines

Coca-Cola created the 'ring-pull' can in 1964 - before
that, you needed a can opener to drink them!

We started by walking through ‘The Vault’. Whether the secret recipe is actually in there is questionable, but it charted the first eras of Coca-Cola, including some interesting claims that it had been invented elsewhere before Pemberton’s magic formula in 1886.

Apart from a brief stint in a vault in New York City, the 'recipe' has
been stored here. In the city, probably not this shiny attempt of a museum.

Scotland? India? We will never know...

Candler bought the rights and established
the company we know as Coca-Cola

There are also sections highlighting the company’s impact on American and western culture, as well as evidence that sports science and nutrition was very different at the start of the twentieth century.

The company claim that they made Santa
look this way in 1931: cheerful, plump and red

In 1969, Coca-Cola redesigned and focused on adding key
elements, like a fixed colour scheme and white ribbon

"When I first went into a six-day race I took
a jug of Coca-Cola..." Sportspeople, take note!

The most interesting section of Coca-Cola World was its newest, using AI photography to generate pictures of what you could have looked like if you had a certain profession when entering one of the first soda fountain bars that sold the drink. There was also a place where they would take your photo and create an AI-generated image of what you would like in a classic Coca-Cola advert. My photo looked hilarious.

Me as a journalist from the 1900s - possibly an improvement

Some people looked more authentic...

...than others!

There are also sections explaining the chemistry behind soft drinks and the different smells associated with Coca-Cola products. The latter included a game where you sniff a pad and then guess the spice, fruit or herb. I was terrible at it.

Beverages under the Coca-Cola umbrella include Fanta and Sprite

Apparently it was lime. I had no idea.

The reason a child would get excited about coming here (aside from having your photo taken with a weird, skinny, tall polar bear) is the tasting room, in which you can sample over 100 different drinks made by the Coca-Cola company around the world. Some, such as Bonbon Anglais, were delightful, tasting a bit like Lilt. Others, such as sour plum Fanta from China, were…undrinkable. There are so many free samples you can have before your teeth start feeling like mush.

School trips here would be insane

Don't. Do. It.

The ‘museum’ is situated a block away from Centennial Olympic Park, a pleasant green space that seemed sparsely populated (possibly due to the weather). This park contains memorials for the 1996 Olympic Games hosted by the city. 

The Olympic Stadium was redesigned as a baseball
stadium after 1996, and is now used for college football

The star of the 1996 Games was Michael Johnson

Part of this includes the memorial for the bombing that happened in the park during the Olympics, as well as a tribute to the man who found the suspicious package and alerted authorities: a move that undoubtedly saved many lives. It’s not mentioned that he was pursued by the FBI and the media and presumed guilty for quite a while…

Sources indicate that one person died, but this memorial suggests two

Richard Jewell was intensely investigated before being exonerated

Other famous people are memorialised in the city; specifically, the most famous man associated with civil rights in the country and arguably the world. Martin Luther King Jr was born in Atlanta in 1929. His first house and the church in which he preached can be found a short distance to the east of downtown, in a broader area known as the Martin Luther King Jr National Historical Park.

A copy of the memorial found in Washington DC

King lived here for 12 years

The Church is famous; however, the guard was
adamant I couldn't come in at my visiting time

Dr King is buried here, with an artificial stream running around the tomb. This is a visual representation of a quote from his renowned ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. It’s an important site and one that I’m surprised doesn’t garner more attention, though like most people I would have visited the National Center for Civil and Human Rights if it had been open. 

"We will not be satisfied until justic rolls down
like water and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Auburn Avenue was an important area for
black Americans in Atlanta during segregation

The main museum, next to World of Coca-Cola, was not open

Another rights pioneer of sorts was a lady called Mary McKenzie. In 1945 she opened a tea room called Mary Mac’s. At this time, women weren’t allowed to own restaurants; it was therefore called a ‘tea room’. It has since become one of the most famous establishments in Atlanta, with a star-studded guest list strewn across one of the walls. The food is very ‘southern US’: meatloaf, grits, fried chicken and more, all washed down with sweet tea. No Coca-Cola in sight, here.

It's also one of the city's largest restaurants

Richard Gere and James Brown have dined here

We didn't need dinner

Atlanta may not have iconic sights or many visitors from afar. What it does have are memorials for important events and people, all washed down with a cup of ‘Ice Cold Sunshine’. 

A ha indeed: a sign in the chaotic World of COca-Cola 

Love you all,

Matt

USA - Locked and Loaded

June 22-30

Hello everyone!

I’m spending my summer exploring many parts of the United States of America. Six weeks of larger-than-life…well, everything, probably.

Expect some fireworks over the next six weeks!

Doing this too often may send me
back to El Salvador a bit larger...

This has been meticulously planned for months. However, for a 72 hour period in May, this wasn’t going to happen. I don’t need a visa to come to the US as I’m eligible for a visa waiver known as ESTA, which lasts for two years. Well, I’ve been eligible before…

The main page has a specific section about Cuba -
the information on that page didn't match what
was requested later on the application form 

I visited Cuba on holiday in 2018. This wasn’t a problem when I organised my ESTA in 2018, nor in 2022. The regulations have changed, meaning that this was now a problem in 2025. I was told that I would need to apply for a proper visa, pay $185 (an ESTA is $21), and do an in-person interview at an embassy. The waiting list for an interview being…months…

Enjoying Cuban stereotypes seven years ago

Long story short, when I went through the process again later in the week to show people the problem, a different menu popped up at the Cuba juncture. This allowed me to explain why I had gone to Cuba and specifically when I visited. An hour later, I had my ESTA. Once the man at immigration in Atlanta’s enormous airport had become bored with me listing off exactly where I was visiting so returned my passport, I was in, and my Stateside summer was up and running.

The site had been down for maintenance for much of
the weekend - maybe this was part of the 'fix'

Lake Lanier, GA

The first ten days or so are being spent in northern Georgia, partly recovering from the chipped ankle whilst enjoying a bit of local culture…

Scruffy was happy when I was icing my ankle

Lock 'n' load

Whatever your views about them, guns are an integral part of American history and culture. Many sources indicate that there are more guns than citizens. 

That is one perspective, I guess...

Firearm skills are honed at gun ranges. Visiting one on a Tuesday afternoon was nice because there was hardly anyone else there. I can’t imagine how hot and loud the place would be when full.

Use of the range for three people was about $50

It resembles a ten pin bowling alley...with a few less barriers...

Even with only one other couple, it would be deafening without earplugs and air defenders. A 9mm gunshot has a volume of about 160 decibels. Normal conversation: 60 dB. 

You can move the target closer or further away

Just before firing, my watch buzzed to tell me...to relax...

Before firing this, we used a smaller, lighter gun with .22 caliber bullets. This refers to the diameter of the bullet, with these being smaller and therefore less powerful. Unlike in the movies, you really should hold your gun with two hands and set your feet apart to brace for the recoil.

.22 caliber bullets

Switching to a more powerful gun is immediately noticeable. That second gun had a laser sighter on it…which seems to fly in a different direction when the trigger is squeezed. Our paper target was well-peppered, but a lot of our shots were in the right zone.

A 9mm Glock - the button for the laser is on the back of the butt

I don't think I missed the target...

This was happening an hour north of Georgia’s capital and largest city, in the town of Cumming. Quite a bit of this region is taken up by an artificial lake called Lake Lanier. This massive reservoir, named after a Confederate veteran and poet, was created in the 1950s.

The lake has a size of 38,000 acres, and is the largest in the state

Hannah, Scruffy and I spent a morning paddling
around a couple of 'fingers' of the lake

Last time I was here, in 2022, we took a short boat ride in almost sub-zero temperatures. With the temperature 30°C higher this time, the spectacularly scenic lake was a much more attractive proposition. 

December 2022, when I had to borrow clothes

June 2025, when I didn't need many clothes

Of course, it becomes more appealing for everyone else as well, turning into a bit of a watery adventure playground. With speed boats and jetskis zooming around, waves called 'wakes' are created. If you don’t spot one of them…well let’s say you’re liable to get wet. Very wet. Twice. No photos of that as phones were hidden away to be spared from the wave.

A calmer morning on Lake Lanier

It’s nice to swim in the lake, though an internet search will advise you not to as the lake is…haunted. Depending on which story you listen to, it could be due to:

• Graves not being fully exhumed before the creation of the lake;

• Phantoms of the people who have since died in the lake but whose bodies haven’t been recovered;

• A handless woman who drowned in 1959 grabbing unsuspecting swimmers and dragging them to the bottom of the lake.

We were fine. When the temperature is almost always above 90 Fahrenheit (32 Celsius), a swim is needed.

The creation of the lake displaced 250 families and 15 businesses

Rumours about alligators living in the lake are unfounded...so far... 

Humans aren’t the only species that use Lake Lanier. It is teeming with fish, making another popular American pastime possible on the shoreline.

Bluegill fish were hanging around the dock

If you squint, you can see a heron just to the right of centre

I’d never done fishing before; it’s not something that has ever appealed to me. Having now spent almost an hour on the shoreline, with four little fishes caught and released, I understand why it is popular. Well, a little bit.

A seabass it is not

Of course, part of the idea here is that I’m supposed to be resting so that my ankle recovers. Being in a country where anything can happen, it’s also an opportunity to try out some alternative treatments…

Me standing in a cryotherapy chamber 

This is a cryo chamber. It is chilled to a cool -111°F. Spending time inside is supposed to promote pain and inflammation reduction, as well as athletic recovery. It reminded me of living through Kazakh winters, but also wasn’t that bad. Probably because you couldn’t step out of a Kaakh winter after three minutes.

Hannah, having done this before, went colder and longer

Spending 10 days in north Georgia has been a pleasure. It's allowed me to rest and recuperate and spend quality time with great people, whilst also having some fun and unusual experiences. A delightful start to my Stateside summer.

Enjoying lunch on Lake Lanier

Probably cheating from this distance...

Love you all,

Matt