Atlanta and it’s very large aquarium

Today we spent the day at the Georgia aquarium – which is the second biggest aquarium in the world! (Second only to some crazy new Chinese aquarium).

It’s not like any other aquarium we’ve ever been in before either. The layout is more like a shopping centre – with different sections to walk through, rather than just one long loop. The different sections all have a theme, and each section has a “showstopper” tank. One of the sections had “the largest tank in the world”, which had huge manta rays and even bigger… whale sharks! An absolutely huge tank!!

Our favourite section was the beluga whale tank – another huge tank with four playful and curious beluga whales. During our lunch, we found an uncrowded room that had a big window into the beluga whale tank. From there, we could watch them up close, without hundreds of screaming children in our way! Bliss! They could clearly see us, and it was fun to be able to interact with them from the other side of the glass – they’d rub up against the glass and come right over to see you! They seem so friendly and playful 🙂 Safe to say Jen has another new favourite animal!! XD

Right at the end of our day, after we’d seen everything we wanted to see – a member of staff got chatting to us, and (knowing that they were Jen’s favourite part) he offered to take us to see the top of the beluga whale tank. “Sure” we thought, not really knowing what to expect. After following him through an elevator, some “staff only” doors and long, zero-populated corridors, we were right at the top of the tank – with nobody but one of the staff members feeding the whales!! Turns out, he had an hour to kill before he had any work to do, so he figured he’d show us around (plus, I think he liked us too). It was like one of the VIP “behind-the-scenes” tours that you can pay for – except.. it was free! He also showed us the top of the tank with the whale sharks and manta rays in – which from the top, looks just like an Olympic sized swimming pool filled with sea creatures. He answered our many questions, and shared his stories and insights with us! The nicest man ever! We felt so lucky! 😀

So all in all, we’ve had a top day at the aquarium! 🙂 We’re back in our room now, ready for our drive north tomorrow. We are headed to Nashville, which will probably take us around 5 hours all in all. Not too bad. Here are some of our other photo’s from today 🙂