New Camera and Trip to Birmingham

We have a new camera!!!! Olivia's dad decided to help us out and get us a Lumix G1. It takes awesome shots, has a nice screen, and is really comfortable. One of the best things about it is the fact that the viewfinder is an LCD screen, it really makes it a lot easier to look through. But this post isn't just about a fancy new awesome camera, it's about my trip to Birmingham with Olivia's family for Memorial Day.

Birmingham is a really cool town. I'll be honest, I think I like Birmingham more than Knoxville. Although I haven't experienced the breadth of Knoxville truly, I don't really like anything that I've seen other than Knoxville's downtown. Our downtown is the best part of the city. Memphis and Birmingham definitely have a more expansive and open downtown area, but Knoxville's is perfect for just parking the car and walking around. You can cover the whole area in an hour, mainly because it's one street long! 

We started off our trip to a place called the Peanut Depot. A local institution that sells peanuts by the pound made on antique machinery. We bought cajun, regular, and boiled peanuts. Boiled are probably my favorite because of how salty they are. I love salt and I've always wanted a peanut with a shell that's salty on the inside! Here it is!!! Delicious. Don't forget the pigeons outside that eat peanut shells and of course the Grapico, a southern tradition that I can't see becoming a tradition anywhere else (because it's not that good) ((just kidding)). We then went to some kind of junk store that's reminiscent of Bojo's Antiques in Memphis. We got some cool pictures there and also some sights that will surely be manifested into nightmares in the future.

The next day we took a 'lil trip on the road and saw the Birmingham campus and checked out Five Points South. This is definitely a cool part of town, think Market Square or Cooper Young. It's finally the only place I've found where you can just park the car and walk around. We checked out Charlemagne Records, a nice record store albeit a bit overpriced, and saw Frank Stitt's restaurants Chez Fonfon and Highlands Bar and Grill. Let me put it out there, if I live in Birmingham in the near future I will be working at one of these. We also stopped by the Continental Bakery and I bought five macarons and a really tasty, crusty baguette. Gotta say, my first macaron was pretty delicious. 

All in all it was a really fun trip and I enjoyed the time. I want to thank Olivia's family again for letting me come and refusing for me to pay for anything, I'll make it up to you guys! Oh yeah and I'll have that bbq sauce recipe before you know it.