History, history, history

---

G'Day All

Today I talk to you from a wet and wintery Charleston, but first to our trip up the east coast from Cocoa Beach. Our first stop after leaving Cocoa Beach was Savannah, made famous of course by the TV show of the same name (I know you watched it Jess), Forrest Gump, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and some sort of civil war which happened in these parts a while ago. Savannah is, in Emma's words: "More beautiful than I could ever imagine" and all she talked about on the way up was how beautiful this place was, so that gives you an indication of how nice it is. There are cobblestone streets and 21 parks with monuments throughout the town centre. Savannah boasts to be rich in American history and has the historical landmarks to back this up. It is the birth place of Juliette Gordon Low. That's right, she's the founder of the girl guides. As well as this Savannah is home to many houses of famous past Americans like Nathanial Green (second in charge to George Washington) and Eli Whitney who invented the cotton gin.

We took a trolley (small tram looking thing) tour of Savannah which took in all these sites. For lunch we went to Moon River (Yes, the song) Brewing Company who supplied us with an addequate supply of lunch time beers and some food. Fried green tomatoes, creamy crab sandwich and hickory smoked beef were on the menu for our trio. In the late afternoon we made our way to the Rail Pub where our afternoon supply of beer was dealt at a happy hour rate which entailed $1 beers for every full price beer you paid for. As a sweetener they had free fried chicken, needless to say we stayed there a while.

The next day saw us driving up the east coast to Charleston via Hilton Head Island. As we soon found out this is golfers and mega rich people paradise with lots of huge mansions and even huger (I think thats a word) boats. For any golf buffs out there, on Hilton Head Island is a famous lighthouse on the end of the 18th hole at the Harbour Town Golf Club. We have photos (which could be uploaded if we have time). From there we steered 'the tortoise' towards the interstate and headed up to Charleston. When we got in we found out that there was a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Marion Park which is in downtown Charleston. We headed down there to see a 60 foot high tree (made of lights) and a stage with school kids singing followed by the mayor and police chief trying to do comedy, they failed miserably. The tree, however, was rather spectacular and really got us into the christmas mood. There were also smaller (real) trees owned by schools lit up in the park.

Today saw us rise with the hope of sampling a decent brunch in Charleston. Emma's lonely planet said the Hominy Grill in downtown Charleston did a great brunch so we headed on down. It ended up being a 30min wait to get in but this was well worth it. Our omlette, sauteed shrimp and southern style country breakfast were fantastic. They all came with cheese grits (a kind of wheat dish resembling polenta) and a biscuit (sort of a scone). Following our breakfast we headed down to watch the christmas parade which was very long and some what funny. After seeing some teenagers dance past Emma made the call: "I hate pre teens dancing, they are all fat and out of time." Very funny.

Tomorrow we are heading off to see the USS Yorktown and then onto Augusta.

Keep the e-mails coming, we are all gossip whores and like to be kept informed.

Ian, Emma and Nick

---