I flew Delta from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (Indianapolis Airport has immediately become my favourite airport in the whole world. It's only got one terminal; it's clean, bright, spacious and airy; everything's easy to find; and there are almost no queues at all. Surreal, but heavenly.) After the plane I took a Greyhound and now I'm here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's only a couple of hours' drive from Savannah, Georgia, where I passed a pleasant few days a couple of years ago. The two places are pretty similar really: low-key, genteel, old-fashioned and expensive. South Carolina is pronounced by the locals as "South Ca'lina", in much the same way that "Sunderland" is generally abbreviated to "Sun'land".
I wouldn't last a day here in the sweltering height of summer. Thankfully the temperatures now are only in the 70s and it's not too humid. I can just about manage long-ish walks. There is an abundance of colonial-era architecture, or at least neo-colonial, and there are almost no major chains visible downtown: there's one single Subway, and that's about it.
Can't help but observe that Charleston takes the prize for the most expensive plain black coffee of my life to date ($4.50). That's all very well for the rich preppy Ivy League WASP types who make up most of the tourists here, but impoverished bohemian backpackers like me can't stick around for too long. Another Greyhound looms.
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| My AirBnB |
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| Not my AirBnB |
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| Ditto |
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| Broad Street |
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| The Arthur Ravenel Jr bridge, which connects Charleston to Mount Pleasant. I don't know why they call the place 'Mount'. It's as flat as a fart. |
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| USS Yorktown, a decommissioned US navy aircraft carrier. It's moored permanently in the Cooper River as a floating museum. |
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| Edd vs Food #45 'Santa Fe chicken' wrap at the Brown Dog Deli, 40 Broad Street, Charleston. Applewood-smoked bacon, roasted corn, guacamole, tomatoes, lettuce... Red onions, black beans, cilantro, sour cream, monterey jack, roasted chicken... Tortilla strips and chipotle dressing in a jalapeno-cheddar wrap. Potato salad (featuring crispy bacon) on the side. |
