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Published: February 22nd 2007
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Well we thought it was time for another update as Fi and I have done a bit more travelling and had some unique ‘American’ experiences. At the end of January Fi and I jumped in the car and drove up to Charleston (South Carolina) which is about 400 km away. It was a pretty nice drive and we actually passed through three States; Florida, Georgia and then into South Carolina. Gotta love it over here though - speed limit says 70 mph, average speed of drivers is 80 mph and those in a hurry between 85 - 95 mph. Cops won’t even look at you if you are within 10 mph of the speed limit. Even if the cops pull you over you just show them your Australian license which is usually followed by' I'm gonna let you off with a warning this time, just cause you're visiting......'
Anyway, Charleston is quite an old town with some pretty significant history - 'Blackbeard' the Pirate blockaded the harbour for a couple of weeks, and one of his collegues who was quite famous (Stede Bonnet) was hanged (resisting the urge to say he was ‘hung’) in Charelston. The first victory against the
British in the Revolutionary War was won in Charleston, followed by the signing of the declaration of independence. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union and the first shots of the Civil War were fired there. So - it is a pretty amazing place to tour around as pretty much every building you walk past has some historical significance. Anyway, we arrived on Friday night to realise the hotel we were staying at was right on the edge of the trendy restaurant and pub strip and backed onto the Charleston University. Our stroll down the restaurant strip was accompanied by yahooing pissed uni students, and if you thought yanks were loud at the best of times you should hear them when they are pissed and in big groups.
Next morning we got up and headed for the tourist information centre and grabbed some info on the local sites. We then headed across to the Charleston museum which was really quite interesting. Heaps of stuff on wars and guns (which kept me entertained) and heaps of stuff on social life in Charleston (dresses, jewellery and boring crap like that which kept Fiona entertained). Interestingly they had
a large collection on slavery and didn't try to sweep in under the carpet. Once of the more catching displays was a whole series of 'Slave Tags' which are not unlike dog registration tags we use today - really puts how terrible slavery was in perspective. . After that we headed into the ‘Historic District’ and wandered the street looking at the ‘old school’ architecture. We did a tour of George Washington's Charleston home which was quite impressive. After that we headed to the old Provost and jail which was where Stede Bonnet and his crew (among hundreds of other pirates) were held prior to their execution. It was then off to a microbrewery to enjoy the samples of SC beer - 8 sample beers for $8…..awesome (beers weren’t too bad either, not the mass produced, watered down, carbonated cat urine that they pass off as beer in this country).
Next day we got up and headed by ferry out to Fort Sumter which was where the first shots of the civil war were fired (Ian - you would have been wetting yourself with excitement). After a long cold ferry ride (the steps on the Bow looked dry…..turned out
they were not a good place to sit), and so with soggy bottoms we arrived at the fort. It was really impressive and had a complete museum full of items from it's violent past. There were even some unexploded shells lodged in the brick wall from the original bombardment. Well, it was about this time that the 8 beers from yesterday combined with the ferry ride over decided to disagree with me and needed to find a toilet for twosies - and fast! We had 30 minutes to explore the island after a history speech, and thanks to less than helpful directions from the tour guide, I spent a good portion of that running around the bloody fort with clenched arse trying to look composed whilst desperately searching the toilet (It got so bad the barrel of a 1840's cannon was looking good). Much to my relief I finally found the toilet and after ‘dropping the kids off at the pool’ I had a grand total of 7 mins to look at the museum and around the Fort. Needless to say it was a memorable if not in-depth visit. After the return ferry ride we wandered down to the local
markets (selling the usual tourist kitsch) via an old cemetery (which had graves from as early as the 1730’s), and then it was time to commence the Cannonball Run home.
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