Beers, Brussel Sprouts and Bella - The Artist Extraordinaire

5/9/2018 SRQ to Atlanta to Lima, Peru

The Sarasota weather was ideal for travel to Atlanta - blue skies, mid 80s and no summer afternoon thunderstorm on the horizon...

What we didn't count on happening though was a mechanical problem occurring in Atlanta (on our plane bound for SRQ) that delayed our flight by an hour and a half.  So my 3-hour cushion in Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport was rapidly shrinking and I was on a mission - to get to Terminal T and find my niece Bella's award-winning artwork posted less than a year ago while she was an 8th grader.

Awesome job Bella!

Thank goodness for the airport train, which enabled me to travel from the end terminal at Concourse T to the second last terminal - terminal E - in record time - thus giving me plenty of time to enjoy what I thought would be just one Corona at TGI Fridays. 

Since I was traveling solo I decided to take a seat at the bar. My first quite pleasant surprise was that the waitress actually carded me - which needless to say, but I will say it anyway because it hasn't happened in the last 45 years or so, made my day (and lifetime). I decided to try a quick appetizer, and being too lazy to find my glasses, I ordered the Philly cheesesteak eggrolls with craft beer cheese dipping sauce. Had I heard that these were eggrolls instead of rolls, I would have ordered something else. And had I seen the caloric count for these, I would have ordered the brussel sprouts in a lemon soy vinaigrette with roasted onions.

As it was, the young lady sitting next to me, being intrigued by my conversation, thought she might try the sprouts, which came highly recommended by our waitress. In no time we ended up chatting with each other about where we were heading (she was taking her first solo trip to Stuttgart, Germany and was amazed that I traveled so many places solo - but as part of a group). I do believe Carley was the first person I ever met from Idaho. She was fairly recently divorced with a delightful 5-year old little girl, and since her town was so small, her ex-husband lived across the street - which made the shared custody very convenient for both parents. 

In the end, we shared the eggrolls and sprouts - the sprouts were the clear winning choice and, when the dust cleared, we each had another beer - because chatting makes you thirsty. Before we knew it we'd been sitting there for over 45 minutes - starting out as strangers, but leaving for our respective destinations as new friends.