I was in Georgia for the first time last week and I loved it. I want to move there. I can totally see myself opening up a little Bed & Breakfast and pimping around the downtown areas, buying cute things from the various mom and pop stores.
It was love at first "Ya'll." (Actually I'm not going to lie. I've had an affinity for Georgia ever since I saw Steel Magnolias for the fist time.) That and the speed limit is 75.
We stayed at a little B & B in Madison, GA called the Brady Inn. Peter and Karen who run the inn were totally adorable. If he weren't already married I'd proposition Peter myself. Seriously, you didn't taste his breakfast. The cheese grits were to DIE for.
Now, I'm not a big antiquer. I don't have the patience and usually everything I see is junk. However, we happened to walk by this one store and the Civil War-era rifles kind of caught my eye. So we popped into this shop located in downtown Madison. I was perusing the estate jewelry when I heard one of my fellow travelers exclaim, "Ask to see the Nazi drawer?!?! Where's the Nazi drawer? I wanna see it."
"Well sugar it's right there in front of you." That was the voice of the little plump southern woman with silver hair and way too much blush who ran the antique shop. She was totally adorable but there was something strange about her plopping down a drawer full of "authentic" framed Hitler pictures and arm-bands supposedly worn by people in concentration camps and stating, "Now this here is neat."
For the record she also had a drawer full of KKK paraphernalia; pictures of rallies and someone's membership card. This particular drawer was right next to the fossil of a dinosaur head. It was all kind of mind-blowing.
The rest of the trip was strictly work related. On the trip home I was waiting at my gate at the Atlanta airport, next to the Loudest Man in the entire airport.
Apparently he was from Honduras and visiting Miami, missed his flight to Boston so he had to fly to Atlanta and get on my flight to Boston. Lucky me.
He was flying stand-by. How do I know this? Because the was SHOUTINGinto his phone. Finally my flight boarded and I made my way to aisle 32. I was happily buckling my seat belt when I heard, "Escuse me. I sitting here."
Oh you've got to be kidding me. The Loudest Guy in the airport was now the Loudest Guy on the plane and sitting in the middle seat of my aisle:
Loudest Guy on the plane: "Yeah I'm on da flight back to Boston...No I'm in Atlanta...Yeah I saw my friend. Yeah I showed him a good time. Yeah I got him a woman. I got him lots of woman...No I didn't get myself any woman. Oh don't worry about me. I take care of myself."
Ew.
I put on my iPod and began flipping through my Us Weekly. Next thing I know there's a tapping on my shoulder. It was the Loudest Guy.
"Mmmm?"
"Escuse me. Can I borrow jer magazine?"
"Uuuuh...Er...sure..." I handed him over my already flipped through In Touch. I mean what was I going to say? I'd already read it and he couldn't use his phone for two hours. Plus anything to get him to not talk. Plus it was almost Christmas.
When we landed the Loudest Guy picked up right where he left off. But he got my suitcase down for me so I suppose he redeemed himself.
I'm definitely East Coast but I'm 83% sure that living in Georgia and planting Magnolia trees could knock some of the Yankee right out of me.