Travelogue: Athens, Georgia
Two things occur in my working life that allow me to play tourist: one is delivering freight late on a Friday afternoon, which usually results in me sitting and waiting for my next load until Monday morning; the second is running out of my federally-mandated hours of service, which requires me to refrain from operating my vehicle for a minimum of 34 hours. I experienced a confluence of these two work-stoppers on Friday, which landed me in Athens, Georgia for the weekend.
Athens is a college town; the UGA is America's oldest university, with a wide range of programs and quite a bit of basic research going on. This makes for a lively and interesting local culture, but the extremely large Greek system also generates loose squadrons of young men wearing backwards baseball caps and vomiting in and around the vicinity of their shared mansions.
The downtown nightlife that peppers the area between Broad St. and Clayton seems to have a clear cultural Maginot line at Lumpkin. On the West side of Lumpkin at Clayton St. there's the Globe, (voted one of Esquire's top ten bars in the U.S. in 2007) with a good selection of gourmet and microbrew beer on tap and in the bottle. Perhaps because of the mention in Esquire, there seems to have been a struggle for dominance at the Globe between feral packs of brain-and-liver-damaged fraternamoks seeking unescorted sorostitutes to date-rape, and the more cerebral and seldom-vomiting elements of the university and the local community. The bars to the East of Lumpkin St. are the watering holes and feeding pits of Grecoidodon Priapulida Douchebaggus, but walk West and you'll find places like Trappeze, the Farm, and Flicker where there's less Rohypnol and the booze is better.
I stopped in at Flicker first. It's a cozy bar on one side, and a very small cinema on the other. It was a little too early to be there, but it looked promising. The schedule said they were showing The Phantom of the Paradise this week.
Trappeze was busier at that hour. It's a much bigger place, but nearly every table was full of people enjoying the food and the impressive variety of beer, wine, whiskey, and other fine imbibables. I had a Unibroue Éphémère, very tart, from the brewery that makes Maudite and Fin du Monde. I gave Unibroue's Trois Pistoles a taste as well. They're both nice, but I think I still like Maudite best of Unibroue's offerings. I sat at a table with a trio of musicians from Baltimore, MD called The Art Department, and they gave me one of their CDs.
I wanted dinner, so I headed over to the Globe and looked at the menu while I drank a glass of Maudite from the tap. The blackened steak sandwich had been recommended to me by several locals I spoke with, but as it turns out the kitchen was closed. They told me there was a good pizza place still open where I could get a slice. Instead I stopped at Thai Spoon, just south of the Globe on Lumpkin. Their Tom Yum Goong (hot and sour soup) was a really nice balance and I ate it as they prepared it, but if I go there again I'll ask them to make it spicier. The Pad Thai was great. Service was outstanding, too, even though they were busy.
I went to the Farm (aka Farm 955) next, where I had some kind of milk stout that tasted like chocolate. Their walls are adorned with noveau pastorale art shots of cows and pigs, and apparently they serve food using mostly locally-grown produce. I got there just in time to see The Art Department play some stuff that was reminiscent of Fred Frith's work on his '83 album Cheap at Half the Price.
The Farm is a big room, too big in a way. The high ceilings, shape, and composition of the room make live music sound echoey and badly mixed in a way that no sound man could fix. I discovered, however, that the sound quality is really much better in the toilets. There's a courtyard on one side of the Farm with tables and an outdoor bandstand, and I had some good conversation there with locals and students and other university people. A group of them took me back to the little cinema bar Flicker once the live music at the Farm wound down.
Just to check, I asked the bartender at Flicker for a Big Lebowski, and damn if she didn't mix me a very nice white russian without missing a beat or blinking an eye.
Flicker seems to be better suited than the other places I'd visited for solid discourse with interesting, well-educated people. The bar side is quiet enough for five or six people standing around the bar to get convivial and show off their smartitude. A redheaded student asked the Frenchman next to her how to say "Happy Meal" in French, and I zinged in the answer "Soixante-neuf."
I was invited to a party after Flicker closed, but I was ready for bed at that point.
This morning I parked at the big parking lot at Varsity, a chilidog/hamburger joint where the cashiers boom out "WHAT'LL YA HAVE?" as you're approaching the counter. I got what'll-ya-haved by two of them just trying to get to the bathroom to wash the sleep out of my eyes. After looking at the menu I realized that what I needed was coffee and breakfast.
Some joggers clued me up to a place called Big City Bread Company, and I started walking there through residential streets full of charming Southern architecture. Several people waved and shouted "Good morning!" to me from across the street or even up their driveways as I passed, making Athens feel like an altogether different planet or dimension from Los Angeles. A church I walked past rang out with some high-energy hand-clappin' old-fashioned gospel singin', a mounting joyous noise about praying by dancing.
As I got within sight of Big City Bread my cell phone rang. It was a couple I'd met the night before at Trappeze, calling to invite me out to eat. I never made it to Big City Bread for my coffee and breakfast, but we went to a place called Uncle Otto's Kebap and had some pita sandwiches before taking a drive in their car around the university for some sightseeing.
If it wasn't so hot and humid in the summer, I'd toy with the idea of moving here. The town charms me, it's a great place to visit.
Now I'm Alabama bound, catch you on the flip, Chip.
Athens is a college town; the UGA is America's oldest university, with a wide range of programs and quite a bit of basic research going on. This makes for a lively and interesting local culture, but the extremely large Greek system also generates loose squadrons of young men wearing backwards baseball caps and vomiting in and around the vicinity of their shared mansions.
The downtown nightlife that peppers the area between Broad St. and Clayton seems to have a clear cultural Maginot line at Lumpkin. On the West side of Lumpkin at Clayton St. there's the Globe, (voted one of Esquire's top ten bars in the U.S. in 2007) with a good selection of gourmet and microbrew beer on tap and in the bottle. Perhaps because of the mention in Esquire, there seems to have been a struggle for dominance at the Globe between feral packs of brain-and-liver-damaged fraternamoks seeking unescorted sorostitutes to date-rape, and the more cerebral and seldom-vomiting elements of the university and the local community. The bars to the East of Lumpkin St. are the watering holes and feeding pits of Grecoidodon Priapulida Douchebaggus, but walk West and you'll find places like Trappeze, the Farm, and Flicker where there's less Rohypnol and the booze is better.
I stopped in at Flicker first. It's a cozy bar on one side, and a very small cinema on the other. It was a little too early to be there, but it looked promising. The schedule said they were showing The Phantom of the Paradise this week.
Trappeze was busier at that hour. It's a much bigger place, but nearly every table was full of people enjoying the food and the impressive variety of beer, wine, whiskey, and other fine imbibables. I had a Unibroue Éphémère, very tart, from the brewery that makes Maudite and Fin du Monde. I gave Unibroue's Trois Pistoles a taste as well. They're both nice, but I think I still like Maudite best of Unibroue's offerings. I sat at a table with a trio of musicians from Baltimore, MD called The Art Department, and they gave me one of their CDs.
I wanted dinner, so I headed over to the Globe and looked at the menu while I drank a glass of Maudite from the tap. The blackened steak sandwich had been recommended to me by several locals I spoke with, but as it turns out the kitchen was closed. They told me there was a good pizza place still open where I could get a slice. Instead I stopped at Thai Spoon, just south of the Globe on Lumpkin. Their Tom Yum Goong (hot and sour soup) was a really nice balance and I ate it as they prepared it, but if I go there again I'll ask them to make it spicier. The Pad Thai was great. Service was outstanding, too, even though they were busy.
I went to the Farm (aka Farm 955) next, where I had some kind of milk stout that tasted like chocolate. Their walls are adorned with noveau pastorale art shots of cows and pigs, and apparently they serve food using mostly locally-grown produce. I got there just in time to see The Art Department play some stuff that was reminiscent of Fred Frith's work on his '83 album Cheap at Half the Price.
The Farm is a big room, too big in a way. The high ceilings, shape, and composition of the room make live music sound echoey and badly mixed in a way that no sound man could fix. I discovered, however, that the sound quality is really much better in the toilets. There's a courtyard on one side of the Farm with tables and an outdoor bandstand, and I had some good conversation there with locals and students and other university people. A group of them took me back to the little cinema bar Flicker once the live music at the Farm wound down.
Just to check, I asked the bartender at Flicker for a Big Lebowski, and damn if she didn't mix me a very nice white russian without missing a beat or blinking an eye.
Flicker seems to be better suited than the other places I'd visited for solid discourse with interesting, well-educated people. The bar side is quiet enough for five or six people standing around the bar to get convivial and show off their smartitude. A redheaded student asked the Frenchman next to her how to say "Happy Meal" in French, and I zinged in the answer "Soixante-neuf."
I was invited to a party after Flicker closed, but I was ready for bed at that point.
This morning I parked at the big parking lot at Varsity, a chilidog/hamburger joint where the cashiers boom out "WHAT'LL YA HAVE?" as you're approaching the counter. I got what'll-ya-haved by two of them just trying to get to the bathroom to wash the sleep out of my eyes. After looking at the menu I realized that what I needed was coffee and breakfast.
Some joggers clued me up to a place called Big City Bread Company, and I started walking there through residential streets full of charming Southern architecture. Several people waved and shouted "Good morning!" to me from across the street or even up their driveways as I passed, making Athens feel like an altogether different planet or dimension from Los Angeles. A church I walked past rang out with some high-energy hand-clappin' old-fashioned gospel singin', a mounting joyous noise about praying by dancing.
As I got within sight of Big City Bread my cell phone rang. It was a couple I'd met the night before at Trappeze, calling to invite me out to eat. I never made it to Big City Bread for my coffee and breakfast, but we went to a place called Uncle Otto's Kebap and had some pita sandwiches before taking a drive in their car around the university for some sightseeing.
If it wasn't so hot and humid in the summer, I'd toy with the idea of moving here. The town charms me, it's a great place to visit.
Now I'm Alabama bound, catch you on the flip, Chip.