That time of year where every college student is most excited for – not graduation, but Sprang Break! This time of year is meant to be exactly what it sounds like a break in the spring. “You kids don’t need a break, your not ready for the adulthood of life” said an elderly gentleman. Well I beg to differ. Most college students have one, two, maybe three jobs on top of their school work, and we consider this like a paid vacation time in the adult world. So yeah, I’d like to say we need a spring break. However, most teachers don’t understand the concept of spring break, and still assign homework during this vacation for students. I was talking to a former friend of mine, and he was complaining about having homework in all his classes, and was basically saying that “Teachers don’t understand the meaning…this is our break from class…I’ve been working my [butt] off in all of my classes.” I couldn’t agree more. I was thankful to not have as much homework. I had a press release pitch to a potential client, a TV ratings analysis paper, and a social media campaign to run, nothing compared to matrices homework or other equation based homework. So besides all the academics let’s enjoy this week of fun!

Day 1: Atlanta Zoo and Metro Café

So last night I went to FSU in Tallahassee and had some delicious wings from the Hobbit with my best friend Karina DiGreggorio. Now I wake up at 7:00am and head over to Georgia with my traveling buddies, Christine, Isita, Carol, and Esther.

We made it to Georgia! Now we head over to the Atlanta Zoo so that Christine can see her favorite animal – a Giant Panda. We bought the Atlanta City Pass and had access to the Coca Cola Factory, Aquarium, Zoo, and the CNN Tour.

I brought my new Cannon T5i on this trip to take over 3000 pictures, and I was stopping at every animal cage to take at least 20 pictures of a each sleeping animal. It was an adventure taking pictures and having a great time. My favorites would be the Red Panda and the Gorilla.

After we walked the entire Zoo, took photos, and had a blast getting as much panda merchandise as we could we ventured off to our hotel called the Best Western Plus Inn at the Peachtree. We then took a power nap, walked the city, and ate at a Karaoke bar called the Metro Cafe, where I proposed to Esther after our duet of Summer Nights from Grease (THIS WAS A HOAX ESTHER AND I ARE NOT ENGAGED). It was a great night!

Day 2: Waking up to get to our next endeavor we ate breakfast at the hotel, then walked a mile to the Georgia Aquarium.

 

This aquarium was beautiful, it had my favorite aquatic animal the otter, some beluga whales, manta rays, and a giant whale shark. It was breathtaking to be underneath them. While on the people mover under the whale shark one of the kind workers was telling us how Jennifer Lawrence swam with the whales and was freaked out by the grouper. Made my day when I hear other people talk about my future wife. The multiple fish, the fun atmosphere, and the tourist popping their heads in the penguin exhibit made this a great excursion.

Right after our fun little escapade at the aquarium we went literally right next door to the World of Coca-Cola. When we were waiting for the pre-tour to start, we were in an art room waiting. I was shocked to see a Cola bottle painted by someone with the last name as me, Arce.

The World of Coke was cool with the secret formula, dancing polar bear, and the best of all Taste around the world (my favorite was the South African Bibo soda). I lost my phone in one of the theaters for a bit, then found it in the lost and found, and we also recorded a piece of a music video on the stairs. It was pretty cool seeing the torch from the Olympics there and as we were leaving they gave us glass Coke bottles to go.

We ate at a really cool bar called Stats that had the stock numbers on the big screen on a continuous loop. The food was great, and the service was awesome! Later that night we went downtown to a barcade that had boardgames and Pac-man, it was called Joystick.

Day 3: Breakfast, CNN, Tennessee, and Tunes

We woke up late and went to Sun in my Belly for breakfast. That was the best food I ate the entire trip, I cannot rave enough about the delicious eggs, the cheesy grits, the tasty bacon, and the awesome atmosphere, everything was out of Pinterest and wearing a beanie made me feel more at home. If you ever go to Georgia make sure you check that place out! We then treked over to the CNN tour where we had the worst tour guide ever, and it made everything less enjoyable, but thank God for the group of friends that I have that make every situation a great time.

After goofing around and taking 500 photos around the balcony, we decided to hit the road and head towards Tennessee. We jammed out to my new music, and sang the entire trip.

We finally made it to Tennessee where part 2 of the story will continue.