Reliving my childhood

Last week was full of childhood activities. Aside from the usual antics at the daycare such as building a zoo out of Legos, helping defeat the evil emperor Zurg and reading Pinkalicious (as well as some unusual situations like trying to figure out why the entire classroom smelled like pancakes and syrup...), my week was rounded out by my boyfriend surprising me with tickets to the circus! The Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Gold tour came to the UTC arena, and upon arriving, we saw an entire mob of screaming children dancing in the circus ring to the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" - all lead by a clown. We made our way to our seats, and scarfed down a whole bag of cotton candy in under 30 seconds. I remember going to the circus as a kid and always having cotton candy. I liked to lick the pink and blue fluff and watch it dissolve on my fingers (then wiped my sticky hands on my brother). The show started off with a comedy clown act. Normally, I think clowns are lame. Aside from thinking they look dumb, to me, they always seemed like they tried too hard to make the audience laugh. For this show though, I thought the clown acts were pretty funny, especially when one of them came out with an ipod the size of a pizza box and was dancing to some more Black Eyed Peas. My favorite acts were the dog acrobatics, the aerial dancers and the elephants.

I actually applied for an internship in Florida to be an elephant trainer for Ringling Bros. at the Center for Elephant Conservation and even made it through the first round of interviews. I could only imagine what my life would be like right now if I were there training elephants! Hopefully one day I'll be able to live my dream of being able to work with animals in some way, but I'm not sure training elephants for the circus would have been for me. Sure would have made for an exciting experience though!


Over the weekend, I also went with my boyfriend and my friend Charlie to Atlanta. I'll go ahead and introduce Charlie since he is adamant about appearing ("85% of the time") on my blog. You will also probably be seeing/reading more of him when Steeplechase time rolls around. This is Charlie, and his big-headed fish friend trying to hog his spotlight.

We visited the aquarium, the world of Coke and checked out some bars. The aquarium was similar to the one here in Chattanooga except for the fact that the ATL one had Beluga whales, and it is mating season. I could have watched them all day...not for the reasons you are probably thinking! They are just amazing creatures - and being cute doesn't hurt either. They had a pretty extensive penguin exhibit as well.

As for the bars, we only went to 2: Fado and and Rose & Crown Tavern. Fado, being in Buckhead, was pricey for your run-of-the-mill beers but had great atmosphere. Very, very crowded though with loud music blaring, so if you're looking for a chill spot with reasonably priced drinks, this isn't it. Rose & Crown was more of that type of bar but with a big bonus: AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS ONION RINGS! I should have taken a picture of the magnificence that was this mountain of fried onionyness, but I was sans-camera for the night.

And just for fun, and maybe because I haven't put together an outfit for a while, I've included a set of circus-inspired fashion :)