The Ugly American

Week One is over and done.

That's not just my first week of work, but today also marks my first full week in Atlanta. The job is basically okay; today was the first week that I did any real work. Everyday has been meetings or orientation, or just playing catch up on the policies and literature written for the project.

Other than that, I have been enjoying much of the fine Asian cuisine that the city has to offer. On Thursday our collaborative partners from Boston University were down and the library director tool us out to lunch at a Thai restaurant on Spring Street called Nan's. Oh my God. I ordered green curry because it's my favorite and it's a good yardstick for testing the restaurant (like the salsa in a Mexican place). The guy across from me, Sean, got the same, and within about 10 minutes we were both snifling and he broke into a fine sweet. The waitress was laughing everytime she refilled are water glasses.

Another thing about that place: the decor. Absolutly beautiful. Totally modernist, but with traditional Thai accents. The wiatress were all beautiful Thai women in long, Mandarin-style brocade dresses, with sexy slits up to their thighs. I had been told that the bathrooms were worth the trip, so my coworker Meredith and I went to check them out. Dark and wooden, with faint incense and marble basins full of stone. They also included my favorite touch, real white hand towels. Meredith felt like there should be a slow yoga tape playing, to help relieve you of your meal. A five star bathroom for sure.

Traci and I had planned on going to see "Superbad" tonight, but we skipped it for a trip to our local Chinese joint and some "OZ" on DVD. At the Golden Buddha, Traci introduced me to a strange and delightful Georgia Chinese food tradition: sizzling rice soup. I have never seen this on the menu of a Chinese foor restaurant in Texas, and I know now that we are lesser people for it. They bring you a soup of chicken with mushrooms, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and a separate plate of quick friend rice. They dump in the rice and it starts to sizzle, turning the crisp rice soft again. it is fan-tas-tic. We also got eggrolls, which were some of the best I've had in a Chinese restaurant, and I had my favorite, chicken lo mein. There's was just okay; nothing on the Magic Wok in Austin. Traci's orange chicken, on the other had, was sublime.

Does it seen odd to you that I blog a lot about food? Not to me; big fat people eat a lot, and we like to talk about it. On that note, I got a line on some Mexican restaurants in downtown Decatur which I've heard are good.

Other than the state of my Asian-food diet, Atlanta is okay. It's a big-ass, confusing city, and other than getting to work and Kroger, I couldn't find my own ass with both hands if I had too. Luckily, I have Traci, and some very friendly co-workers who have offered lots of good advice on areas that I might enjoy living in. It's very different from Austin in that areas that look nice, aren't always. The streets right around my work look cute, like fairly nice student housing, but someone got murdered across the street from the library over the weekend before I started work. I'll see cute house, shops and apartment houses, and say "Hey, what about..." and Traci or a co-worker will just shake their head a push me along. It's hard to tell where the crackheads hang out in broad daylight.