sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Not sure where to even start. It was hard to find time to make any posts while in Atlanta; there is a lot to do here.
Really like the town, no question it is really well suited to host an event like the Final Four (and one can see some of the major challenges Syracuse faces in its quest to someday host the Final Four.
Let's try a chronological approach.
Flew in from Rochester, which saved me over $500. First time I have done that. Was fine, Rochester has a decent little airport, much like the one Syracuse has, only a bit bigger and nicer.
There were a lot of people in orange there. To show you just how clueless some Rochester natives are, I was asked 3 times what was goin on with so many people wearing orange. Anyway, if you need to get somewhere and the flights out of Syracuse aren't cutting it, consider Rochester. Just over an hour to get there, interstates the whole way.
Transferred through Philly. As I like long bus rides, it was a treat for me to visit.
Had a really hard time getting a hotel room and a flight...the real issue was celebrating the victory over Marquette in Clyde's too late into the evening, and fielding phone calls from friends after that, when I should have been making reservations. But...the celebration was a really good one.
Decided not to rent a car on this trip given how much I had heard about MARTA, the Atlanta mass transportation system. That worked out okay; MARTA was solid. As a matter of fact, I have a Breeze card with 3 days left on it for sell for a very reasonable price.
Ended up getting a good price on a room at the Sheraton Gateway near the airport. Isolated but quiet, nice enough and pretty easy to get to downtown from, though you needed to take the hotel shuttle to and from the airport MARTA stop.
I went to the midtown Hudson Grille Friday night to get dinner, meet up with people on the board and listen to the radio show. Didn't recognize anyone on the board though. The food was okay though.
On Saturday, I made another trek in to pick up the tickets I ordered. Was happy to get ones on the lower level. They set the court up in the center of the football field, which ensured almost no one who attended had a good seat. This is a terrible practice and I hope to God Syracuse is never stupid enough to impose this awful setup on Syracuse fans, even for a one time major money grab.
The tickets are really cool; they are mostly clear with a nice design; Oversized and really modern looking. i haven't seen anything like them before. Nice to get something decent as a keepsake considering the tickets cost $310, not including donations tonSUnto 'grease the wheel'.
I ended up walking over to Mary Mac's Tea Room next for lunch. It is a little off the beaten path, 4 or 5 blocks from the nearest MARTA station. The neighborhood is maybe a little bit dicey but I ran into what appeared to be a driver's ed class for in lines that was quite amusing to watch.
Kind of a different way to order there; you fill out an ordering card and give that to the waiter. Good food at reasonable prices.
Mary Mac (I think) also personally checked in on many of the customers, including me.
The fried chicken and banana bread pudding were excellent. Didn't like the homemade mac and cheese. I haven't ever found a version I like more that the Kraft kind out of a box. Not sure if this makes me trailer trash. Maybe I just lack the homemade mac and cheese gene.
Went back to the Hudson Grille in Midtown again after that. Nice sports bar, was impressed by Tuler Ennis' play but didn't see anyone from the board again.
Eventually met some friends at the Sheraton Midtown, talked up the game for a bit and headed to wherever it was that The syracusefan.com people were drinking at. After some determined passes and some invaluable help from TexanMark, I met up with the gang. Good to see old friends and new ones. Jarhead still looks like he could rip phone books apart with his bare hands. And Swish disappeared just before I got there so I missed him. Bummer.
Walking to the Georgia Dome and the bar the peeps were at was interesting. With 78k attending the game and another 100k or so attending the free outdoor concert in the park next to the Dome, the organizers created a massive sea of humanity the likes of which this humble reporter (always wanted to write that) has never seen.
I think it was a mistake that would really be exposed once the games ended. More on that later. Anyway, lots of people in that crowd moved really slowly, one of many times my fast paced Northern upbringing made me a really frustrated dude. Also, I saw a lot of people smoking in public. Hard to get used to after leaving on the Northeast, where you rarely run into this sort of thing anymore.
My flight home is about to leave so I will post this as part 1 of a 2 part My Take.
Really like the town, no question it is really well suited to host an event like the Final Four (and one can see some of the major challenges Syracuse faces in its quest to someday host the Final Four.
Let's try a chronological approach.
Flew in from Rochester, which saved me over $500. First time I have done that. Was fine, Rochester has a decent little airport, much like the one Syracuse has, only a bit bigger and nicer.
There were a lot of people in orange there. To show you just how clueless some Rochester natives are, I was asked 3 times what was goin on with so many people wearing orange. Anyway, if you need to get somewhere and the flights out of Syracuse aren't cutting it, consider Rochester. Just over an hour to get there, interstates the whole way.
Transferred through Philly. As I like long bus rides, it was a treat for me to visit.
Had a really hard time getting a hotel room and a flight...the real issue was celebrating the victory over Marquette in Clyde's too late into the evening, and fielding phone calls from friends after that, when I should have been making reservations. But...the celebration was a really good one.
Decided not to rent a car on this trip given how much I had heard about MARTA, the Atlanta mass transportation system. That worked out okay; MARTA was solid. As a matter of fact, I have a Breeze card with 3 days left on it for sell for a very reasonable price.
Ended up getting a good price on a room at the Sheraton Gateway near the airport. Isolated but quiet, nice enough and pretty easy to get to downtown from, though you needed to take the hotel shuttle to and from the airport MARTA stop.
I went to the midtown Hudson Grille Friday night to get dinner, meet up with people on the board and listen to the radio show. Didn't recognize anyone on the board though. The food was okay though.
On Saturday, I made another trek in to pick up the tickets I ordered. Was happy to get ones on the lower level. They set the court up in the center of the football field, which ensured almost no one who attended had a good seat. This is a terrible practice and I hope to God Syracuse is never stupid enough to impose this awful setup on Syracuse fans, even for a one time major money grab.
The tickets are really cool; they are mostly clear with a nice design; Oversized and really modern looking. i haven't seen anything like them before. Nice to get something decent as a keepsake considering the tickets cost $310, not including donations tonSUnto 'grease the wheel'.
I ended up walking over to Mary Mac's Tea Room next for lunch. It is a little off the beaten path, 4 or 5 blocks from the nearest MARTA station. The neighborhood is maybe a little bit dicey but I ran into what appeared to be a driver's ed class for in lines that was quite amusing to watch.
Kind of a different way to order there; you fill out an ordering card and give that to the waiter. Good food at reasonable prices.
Mary Mac (I think) also personally checked in on many of the customers, including me.
The fried chicken and banana bread pudding were excellent. Didn't like the homemade mac and cheese. I haven't ever found a version I like more that the Kraft kind out of a box. Not sure if this makes me trailer trash. Maybe I just lack the homemade mac and cheese gene.
Went back to the Hudson Grille in Midtown again after that. Nice sports bar, was impressed by Tuler Ennis' play but didn't see anyone from the board again.
Eventually met some friends at the Sheraton Midtown, talked up the game for a bit and headed to wherever it was that The syracusefan.com people were drinking at. After some determined passes and some invaluable help from TexanMark, I met up with the gang. Good to see old friends and new ones. Jarhead still looks like he could rip phone books apart with his bare hands. And Swish disappeared just before I got there so I missed him. Bummer.
Walking to the Georgia Dome and the bar the peeps were at was interesting. With 78k attending the game and another 100k or so attending the free outdoor concert in the park next to the Dome, the organizers created a massive sea of humanity the likes of which this humble reporter (always wanted to write that) has never seen.
I think it was a mistake that would really be exposed once the games ended. More on that later. Anyway, lots of people in that crowd moved really slowly, one of many times my fast paced Northern upbringing made me a really frustrated dude. Also, I saw a lot of people smoking in public. Hard to get used to after leaving on the Northeast, where you rarely run into this sort of thing anymore.
My flight home is about to leave so I will post this as part 1 of a 2 part My Take.
