My Atlanta Adventure for Janmary Designs

I was very fortunate to have been selected by Lisburn City Council to visit Atlanta on a Trade and Social Mission from Lisburn, N Ireland to Atlanta Metropolitan Area, Georgia. To promote my business janmary designs, handcrafted jewelry, and also to meet retailers and invesitage the handcrafted jewelry market in Atlanta.

I received great advice and mentoring, and meetings were set up with prospective retailers.

As a blogger and photographer I really had to hold back on taking my usual 100’s of photos during the business part of the trip, but I still want to share my Atlanta trip with you.

So here, without as many photos as usual (and some iphone photos), is what happened during the first part of the week.

On the Sunday evening of our arrival (we flew Belfast – Newark, Newark – Atlanta) we had a meal in a local German restaurant, and enjoyed the warm weather – about 70 degrees about 10 in the evening.

Although only one small area of Atlanta, Buckhead had lots of new offices and shops.

Monday was HOT – over 80 degrees, and my first meeting was at 5 Continents craft/gift shop in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.

On Monday evening we had dinner in a restaurant which specialises in local Southern cuisine, hosted by Lisburn City Council.

We discovered biscuits here are very similar to salty soda bread, and were served with honey pecan butter.

I ordered the southern fried chicken, and I have never before been asked brown or white meat. The amount of chicken on the plate was HUGE and it was served with delicious mashed potatoes and green beans. It was a struggle not to take pics of the food. No room for dessert!

On Tuesday I had an interesting adventure/journey to Roswell for a meeting at a bridal shop, and was relieved to finally arrive.

Tuesday evening we had a network event, on the roof garden of an Irish bar in Buckhead, in the heaviest rain shower – made us feel right at home.

More meetings on Wednesday, whach was 30 degrees cooler than the beginning of the week, both in downtown Atlanta, and in a lovely boutique in Decatur, Vivid Boutique

Wednesday evening saw the end of the formal business functions, with the most formal of them all – a reception hosted by the British Consul in the official residence of the British Consulate in Buckhead. We passed some amazing houses mansions on the way.  The residence is a beautiful home, with a large double height central reception room. I WISH I could have taken photos!

A delicious savoury buffet was served – including a layered “gatueax” or cream cheese, pesto, sundried tomatoes, nuts etc. One of our group thought this was a dessert, so was slightly underwhelmed when he discovered it was savoury, but I loved it.

Of course, being from N Ireland, I met a couple who are good friends of a couple from my church here in Lisburn!

I also met Judith McLoughlin from the Ulster Kitchen,  an expat now living in Atlanta and who has just writted a cookery book The Shmarock and Peach tracing the history of the recipes from Ireland which have evolved into many of the staple traditional recipes now in Southern US. The book will be published soon, and will be available on Amazon.

So, that was the end of the business part of my trip.

Coming next, LOTS of photos from the rest of the Atlanta trip, including a review of a new PhotoStory software which can be used to make slideshows.