9/1/16
Jennifer and I flew out of Nashville this afternoon. The flight was only 1hr 20 min but we lost an hour going to EST. We took a taxi to our hotel, the Belmond at Charleston Place. This is the first trip where we have seriously splurged on the hotel. The bellhops and check-in staff were very courteous, carried our bags, gave us dinner recommendations, etc.. The room has pretty fixtures and a spaceous bathroom and we get turndown service! (This consists of a barely-English-speaking woman asking if we want a bag of ice and two water bottles each night, but hey, it's something!) We even have robes and slippers!
Tonight, both got dressed up (dresses!!!) and we went to dinner at Fleet Landing, an excellent seafood restaurant right on the harbor. I had the snapper (catch of the day) and Jennifer had the red fish. Jennifer's fish was definitely the best, but we both had amazing side-dishes of pimento cheese grits! I've never had grits and I'm told they can be very bland, but these were AMAZING. We walked around a bit and speculated about the impending storm and then we came back and went to sleep.
9/2/16
Tropical storm Hermine (soon to be Hurricane Hermine) has arrived! Since it was so yucky outside, we took advantage of our swanky hotel's fitness facilities (we both ran on the treadmill) and indoor pool! Then, we had lunch at what would soon become "our" Subway. (We ate lunch their every day.) We walked down Market Street a bit, but all of the shops were closed because of the storm. We made a quick stop at Rainbow Row (Charleston's version of San Francisco's "painted ladies"), a row of 9 pastel-colored Victorian homes. They are so very pretty! We even walked through the French Quarter a bit (walking by Toast, Hyman's Seafood, Fig, Jestine's, the Rooftop Bar Erika told me about, the customs house, and Tradd Street). I was very excited to find Tradd Street because I'd been reading a fiction novel called 55 Tradd Street.
All this time we'd been walking, it had been looking like rain but out of no where, it began to pour. Jennifer and I were walking our way to "The Alley," a fun bowling alley that Shep Rose (star of the Bravo reality TV show "Southern Charm") had told me about on Twitter. Neither Jennifer nor I wanted to give up and call an Uber or cab so we kept running from gas station to bus stop to take cover. This wasn't a little rain either. The winds were blowing the stop signs around like they could snap off at any moment. Finally, about 4 blocks from our ultimate destination, we took the free trolley until we got almost to the stop. Jennifer spotted The Alley before I did and I kept saying "I don't see it!" Just as I noticed the sign, a car flew by and splashed me with water from head to toe! It was just like something out of a movie.
The Alley was so much fun. We had to wait 2 hours for a lane to open. (Shep has 90K followers on Twitter so that may have influenced how packed it was!) I discovered that the bar stocked "Not Your Father's Root Beer." Recently, I've become obsessed with hard root beer (alcoholic root beer) but I had only ever tried "Best Damn Root Beer." I'd been telling Jennifer for weeks how I wanted to try NYF, but wasn't willing to buy a whole 6 pack to find out. Needless to say, I gave it a try at The Alley. It was amazing! Apparently, 3 beers is my sweet spot for bowling because I broke 100! Jennifer is always brave and tries local beers. She had one called a Tough Pludder that tasted like chocolate and coffee. It was yummy!We had an absolute blast, and we never would have done something like going bowling if it hadn't been for the storm, so thanks, Hermine! Oh and while we were at The Alley, I saw Craig's girlfriend Naomi (both cast members on "Southern Charm.") I went into the ladies' room to work up the courage to ask her for a photo, but when I came out she was gone. *sigh*
For dinner, we had the famous Hyman's Seafood. (unfortunate name but INCREDIBLE food). Even in the storm, we had a 20 minute wait but they had an adjacent gift shop we could browse through to stay out of the rain. NOTE: We walked by the place the following night and people were lined all around the street and they were quoting 2 hour wait times, so again, we can thank Hermine for our short wait! I had the mahi and it was killer! (Jen had the best seafood the first night but I won this round!) They even had a baked sweet potato and don't get me started on the hushpuppies. (I had point blank asked that they not put them on my plate but when they did anyway, I was secretly thrilled. They tasted more like fried doughnut holes than any hushpuppy I'd ever had.) Also, we both had the famous Bloody Mary and stole our glasses. (keeping our Irish tradition)
9/3/16
Today, we slept until 8:30 and then took our time getting ready before we hit "our" Subway for early lunch. Afterward, we took a carriage ride! Our driver's name was Dana, and she explained that our mules names were Toast and Jam. It was hilarious to hear her explain about mules (since I'm from Columbia, "mule capital of the world"). Carriages in Charleston are very regulated. There can only be 20 on the streets at any given time and they are assigned one of three possible routes. They have no idea what route they will get until they reach a metal "bingo" box where they draw their route and get a special license plate. Also, there are lots of fines! If they let the mules poop on the street or eat someone's flower boxes or don't yield at the right redlights, it can get them a $15,000 fine and if they get two, the whole company could lose its license. I was expecting it to be a little two-person carriage, but it actually had seats for 12+. We went by the "spooky" haunted jail. (Convicts typically only lived 100 days from the time they were put into the jail. The driver told us she doesn't take the haunted tours because she took a group there once and was attacked by bugs. She told the story of Lavinia, the first woman to be executed by hanging (for theft) and how she told the spectators she'd see them in hell as they hung her. We also saw lots of houses where the windows or porch ceilings were painted "haint" blue to ward off evil spirits. This came from the Gullah people of West Africa. We also circled lots of churches. Dana said they were ABC (All but Catholic). We also saw some of the architecture, beautiful Charleston "singles" which were skinny houses built with the side walls facing the street to take advantage of the ocean breezes. The houses had "fake gates" that led to no where and beautiful porches they called piazzas. (pee-a(as in apple)-zuhs). If the gate was open, it was an invitation to neighbors to "come on in." In the olden days, when people thought it was sacrilegious to show, the only way anyone could relax was to close the gate so everyone knew you weren't available for entertaining.
After the carriage ride, we walked through City Market, an indoor/outdoor market selling all kinds of goods, especially sweetgrass baskets which are hand-woven baskets made from the various grasses that grow around South Carolina. They have a very long history that goes back to the baskets used to cultivate rice in West Africa. We met one lady who told us all about the history and took a lot of time with us. There were so many people selling them it was a bit overwhelming. I got a fan, some roses fashioned from the sweetgrass and a little mini-basket I will use as a Christmas ornament. Jennifer got a real basket for her mom. After the City Market, we walked down the fancy section of King Street. We got iced coffees at Starbucks and magnets at Walgreens. We also stopped at several stores where Jennifer and I both got earrings (pineapples for each of us, some studs for Jennifer and a really pretty pair of dangling crystals for me). I also bought a necklace at another store that I planned to wear with my pretty black dress. (I didn't actually get to wear them but that's ok...)
Next, we did the Harbor Tour! It was SO BEAUTIFUL! The weather was perfect. The water wasn't even choppy. Hermine cleared the way for what the boat captain said was the best weather he'd seen in months. We could see Patriot's Point with the battleships and Ft. Sumter which is actually NOT where they fired the first shot of the Civil War, but that's what everyone says. We got to see the Ravanel Bridge (Ravanel Sr was a senator who was responsible for securing the funding for the bridge. His son is the Ravanel on "Southern Charm" who also ran for office even after being convicted for cocaine.) We saw some beautiful homes with harbor views. Bill Murray has a house (or his ex-wife does) on one of the islands. The sun set while we were on the cruise and it was perfect. I could have stayed out there forever. We finished off the night with dinner at Tabbuli where they were smoking hookah! It was a really chill, fun vibe and we had great food! (Greek salad with grilled chicken, falafel, babaganous, hummus and pita bread). Finally, we had Peace Pie! (gourmet ice cream sandwhiches at a place next door to Hyman's.) We debated about flavors, but we ended up with S'Mores and we split one.
