During my hectic and crazy Thanksgiving Break, I got to become briefly reaquainted with my old hometown of Atlanta. I didn't think it was humanly possible, but the traffic in Atlanta is even worse than when I lived there. At 1:30 PM on a Monday, the highways were clogged with cars and the major side roads were not moving.

It's hard to explain traffic like this to people in St. Louis. Here, we're accustomed to highways that have 2, maybe 3 lanes in each direction. It Atlanta it's common to have 6 or 7 or more.

They also have the HOV lane, which stands for "Hovercraft". Actually, it stands for High Occupancy Vehicles, but based on the number of cars riding in this lane, it might as well stand for Hovercraft. While the other 7 lanes are jam packed with cars trying to maintain a 70 mph speed while randomly switching lanes in bumper to bumper traffic, the HOV lane is empty. Riding in it reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes a Stonecutter and gets to skip the traffic by using the secret underground street. Perhaps this is why the traffic in Atlanta is so bad: nobody carpools.

The airport is also an experience unto itself. It's the size of a small town, and while Lambert has the Metrolink that goes from the East Terminal to the Main Terminal, Hartsfield in Atlanta has a train that goes between 5 different concourses in the South terminal alone.

And built into your flight time out of Atlanta is the approximately 40 minutes you'll spend sitting on the runway waiting to take off. My flight was scheduled to leave at 4 EST, but didn't end up taking off until roughtly 4:45. After waiting there for half an hour, the pilot came on the intercom and said "we're now fourth in line for takeoff". I don't think I've ever been more than second or third in line for takeoff from here, even just after leaving the gate. Somehow it still made it in time to St. Louis at 4:55 CST.

I therefore have these travel tips for those traveling to the State of Georgia, a.k.a "Metro Atlanta":

-Bring something to do on the plane. You can't use your cell phone or electronic devices while taxiing, so ideally it should be something low tech and time consuming for the wait like a Rubiks Cube, 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, or the latest Harry Potter novel.

-Bring a friend. You can't ride in the HOV lane without another passenger in your car, so kidnap someone if you have to. Anything in order to stay out of the 7 "death lanes".

-Avoid the city altogether. Besides the two clogged highways through downtown, there are numerous equally-clogged bypasses going around the city. Keep in mind that due to the size of the city, some of these bypasses go through other cities, such as Montgomery, Alabama. Besides beating the traffic, you also get to avoid Atlanta's biggest eyesore: the Atlanta Falcons.