After 8 long weeks of hard work and toil, we were finally awarded a break from classes in the form of Fall break. HAH! Break! Their interpretation of a break is two days without classes, not much of a break but I'll take it nonetheless. Fortunately to help pass the time (or what time we have off), OIE (office of international education) had organised a trip to Charleston, South Carolina for international students. This city is where the first shot of the civil war was fired and was/is a large port city where historically many immigrants from europe and africa would first stop.
One of the few down sides to the trip? We had to be on campus by 7am on a sunday.... My alarm should never be set for before 6am. It's a rule, nay fact. Let's just say it wasn't pretty. Yet I was awoken rather quickly by the fear that I might not being going on the trip at all. For I had booked a taxi the previous day for 6:30am. I am outside waiting and a taxi pulls up at 6:25am very promptly. Turns out, by sheer chance someone else in the building had ordered a taxi for the exact same time and this was her taxi. Minutes flow past, calls are made to the taxi company. A new driver is assigned to me because the driver which was assigned to me, his GPS is "off the grid" apparently. More minutes flow past, eventually a taxi pulls up at 6:54am. Google maps reckons it takes about 7-8 minutes to get to campus from my place and we were told the bus leaves at 7am. So I, firmly let my dissatisfaction known to my taxi driver and tell him I have to be there by 7am. That idea that you see in movies where if you say to a taxi driver "get me there 5 minutes ago and I'll give you $20" is apparently true. He flew through the streets and even pulled up directly in front of my bus to make sure it didn't leave before I could get out. Champion driver, why couldn't he have turned up 20 minutes earlier and saved many a sweaty palms. Thus the adventure begin earlier for me than most.
The drive to Charleston, SC is about 5 hours. That's 5 hours cramped on a bus with next to no sleep...I'll you do the math. Not good. Rest stop at a Macca's (which I have since learnt is a crazy name to the rest of the world to call McDonalds) was much appreciated.
First stop was Boone Hall Plantation, an old plantation which reeked with Southern history. Just even driving through the driveway, I had the Django theme song playing in my head. It was very cool to see. We had a presentation from a descendant of one of the "Gulla Geechee" (West Africa) slaves which worked on the plantation which was extremely interesting to hear about the local culture and hear a story from the other side of the fence. We then had a tour of "The Big House" to get a vibe of what 17/18th century living would have been like, followed by some free time to wander around the grounds. The estate was perfectly maintained and really was quite beautiful in parts yet seeing the houses on "Slave Street" was a humbling reminder of how lucky we really are. Now the three funnies that I remember from the plantation.
1) Food. After 5 hours on a bus, we were all reasonably hungry so when we all got to the parking lot, they unloaded the food and let the bus go park while our tour organiser went to sort out the admin stuff of our visit. So not knowing if where we were dropped off was where we were going to sit and have lunch, we were forced to wait...just looking at all the food. You could have cut the tension with a knife. It was hilarious because everyone was watching, eyeing off the food waiting for someone else to make the first move. Just that awkward standing, a few muted conversations here and there while everyone really had one thing on their mind....food. Classic "find the funnies" moment, love it!
2) After coming out of the Big House, we exited out the back of the house onto the bank of a creak/march type area. It was quite beautiful with the hanging trees and the historical gardens around. Yet across the water was a giant yacht just ruining the view. You could pan around and go southern historical, southern historical, southern historical, giant yacht, southern historical. Just a little reminder how much wealth really goes into these properties.
3) Lastly my favourite, FROG jam. Anyone keen to buy some FROG jam from the gift shop? It's homemade! No, you don't like to eat FROGs? It's just Fig, Raspberry, Orange and Ginger? What a great marketing job. That's up there with getting Moose Droppings from Canada (chocolate sultanas for those who haven't had the pleasure). They also had pumpkin butter with honey which sounded kinda odd to me as well, not the first combination I would have thought of!
One awesome thing I saw on the way from the plantation to hotel. This cracker of a business sign. Absolutely brilliant pun! Which reminds me, my puns were clearly not appreciated, at one rest-stop on the drive, we were missing two people so the organisers were trying to find out who wasn't on the bus. Meanwhile the people at the back of the bus were complaining about some beeping noise coming from the bathroom on the bus. The organiser just told them "we'll find the missing people and then sort of the bathroom noise" to which I chimed in with "Yeah, we need to flush out these missing people"! Nothing! No reaction from anyone! I even did that awkward quiet "That's just a little word play there" to just fully play out the missed joke! Well I thought it was a good pun....
Once checked in to our hotel, we were given 2 options. The organisers had planned on maybe checking out a ghost tour which we could tag along with or do your own thing until leaving the next day pretty much. Having already looked at the 8 ghost tour brochures in the lobby, I quickly gathered there were "tourist traps" and had found a few lads where thought a similar thing so we decided to just head into downtown, grab some dinner and maybe a few drinks. Just check out the vibe. Meanwhile everyone else was keen on the ghost tour. The ghost tourists had called a shuttle service to take them downtown while we had just called a maxi taxi to get us guys in. Unfortunately, the taxis and shuttles all turned up at once causing much confusion so we just jumped into the first taxi. Our taxi driver? Best ever. She seemed like a late 30 something mum but she was making jokes about the other shuttle drivers which were causing the confusion, she was pumping the music, making jokes. She even said to us once found out what we were planning to do "Oh you don't want to go there [where we had originally thought looked central]. I'll drop you off someplace better. Now do you want good food and drinks or do you want to go out with college girls?" Classic!
So after being dropped off where there was "good food and drinks" (see, we took the high road in the driver's question!), we had dinner at the "Noisy Oyster". Charleston is known for it's seafood so we figured why not try the seafood. I had bacon stuffed shrimp (read prawns) which was delicious. I also tried as my side some Carolina Red Rice which is famous in the area. It was like rice cooked in a tomato and sausage sauce, very tasty indeed. We then wandered around the city area a little, went out on the pier (and had a go on the swing chairs they had feeling like little children...but you know, #YOLO....that's sarcasm clearly), had a beer on a rooftop bar that lonely planet recommended and finished up having a drink at an Irish pub watching the Irish there embarrass themselves to the Irish band. All in all, a good night! The funniest part though, for the 35 odd people keen to do the ghost tour? They turned up and it wasn't even happening!
Next morning we headed out to the city again, had some breakfast and set out doing some more sightseeing. The thing I loved about Charleston, was that it was nothing like I expected. Thinking in my head, old civil war town, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the town was much more influenced by it's European history and walking down some lanes, you could have been in a back alley in France or Italy. It was amazing. We did stop off for a tour in one of the early 18th century homes which was fascinating to see the level of detail put into it's design. We checked off the waterfront park, Rainbow Row (all the houses on the waterfront are in different colours almost), the markets and some lovely alleys and churches. We covered a bit of ground. For photos check out my facebook but for the funnies keep reading!
One road sign we found was a picture of a see saw. On first glance, we were utterly confused. Does this mean there's literally a see saw ahead, or is there a bump in the road which kinda resembles a see saw, or is someone having a laugh? Turns out it's their way of saying there's a playground ahead so watch out for children. Not the first conclusion I jumped to but amusing all the same.
Another great find was in the markets, there was a chocolate/candy store which had a whole range of "interesting" truffles. One caught more eye and forced me to find out more. It was simply titled Bacon Love. Turns out they puree bacon and chocolate together and use that as the filling for the truffle! YUM! By two favourite food items put together! For $3, totally had to try it. It was delicious! Couldn't have too many of them but definitely a nice way to enjoy bacon and chocolate, especially if you were like pressed for time and couldn't enjoy the amazing goodness of them separately and were forced to have them together!
Finally after lunch, we stopped off at another chocolate/candy store because the smell simply drew us in. It all looked amazing but I finally settled on the Triple Chocolate Marshmallow. Best of all worlds. So rich yet sooooooo good :D Had to get a money shot!
All in all, it was a great way to spend Fall break. Not only to see more of this huge country. But to spend the time having a laugh. It was great to meet more international students and reacquaint with other international students I had previously met earlier in the term (countries include China, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Switzerland and more!). We shared many laughs, particularly on the bus ride home as were all reached delirious levels of tiredness.
But that is what life is all about.
Good friends, good laughs.
I wouldn't ask for it any other way.
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