Charleston: relying on the kindness of strangers (August 6-10)

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I’d organised to couch surf in Charleston with a host staying in dorms at the local college. I got her number two days before, however each time I called she didn’t answer. I arrived and went to the local hostel, which was closed, then the hotels, which ended up being all completely at capacity. I was in a bit of a pickle until the lady at the front desk, Julie, offered for me to stay at her house if her husband thought it was ok. I met Itti, her husband, and they offered for me to stay.

The only thing I knew about the Civil War prior to Charleston was that it was fought between the north and the south. Here was definitely the place to learn more. I went to Fort Sumter, the spot of the first shot of the Civil War and a highly fought over area between the Confederates and the Union. Unfortunately this older, war veteran guy decided he was going to spend the majority of the trip rambling at me about things which didn’t make sense and I missed a few things the tour guide was saying.

Everything touristy was pretty pricy in there, and a lot of it gave information on the same sorts of things. So apart from the Fort, I did a quick bus tour and a look through one of the museums.

On my second night, I went out with Itti and his friend Cory. They explained to me that they really enjoyed going to ‘dive bars’ – places much resembling the Manly Fisho’s. It was a really dark bar with cheap beer and pool, not bad at all. I met this girl Lisa who was telling me how when she was younger she ran away to join the circus; I thought that was cool because you hear about that kind of thing often enough, but I’d never met anyone who had done it. She was a trapeze artist so I got her to prove it to me by doing some tricks on a shop awning, she was truthful.

One of the highlights to the trip so far was a morning of street basketball. Itti and I went to the local courts to find about 30 guys waiting round to play 4-on-4 games. To get a game on the court you had to really shout out that you wanted to play and go and tell everyone around the court that you were playing next - it’s not like there was a line or anything. The game was really aggressive and fast. Playing inside the key was crazy, no one really called fouls and you could tell that those people who did weren’t looked upon favourably. They don’t play the rule that you have to take the ball out of the 3-pointer after getting a rebound, so you pretty much had eight guys crashing the boards real hard. My team won so I was pretty stoked.

Julie, Itti and I headed on up north to Myrtle beach, about a 2 hour drive. It’s a holiday kind of place with lots of resorts, bars and a nice beach and pier. We managed to grab a cheap last min hotel on this great website priceline.com, where it’s like a mystery pick of what you get - $60 between the three of us, score! It was really great just to spend a day doing nothing on the beach, there wasn’t much surf, but it was still fun.

Charleston was a great mix of history and hanging out. I really appreciated Itti and Julie taking me in for the whole time I was there, if they didn’t I might have spent at least one night on a park bench.

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