The experiences and exploits of a college grad trying to make it in the "real world:" leaving school and friends in New England, moving south, and living with her boyfriend. Watch as I pretend to be an adult.
We got a bit of a late start on Friday and didn’t arrive at the hotel until almost 6. The weather was beautiful, and downtown Charleston is amazing. It’s a fairly small city center, and you can definitely walk just about everywhere you need to go. We ditched the car in a longterm parking lot and walked a couple blocks past street venders to our hotel. After checking into our (very posh) room and dumping our luggage we headed out for dinner. Elija had the utter GALL to question my navigational skills (ironic because he is always the one who gets us lost) but we found the restaurant before we expired of hunger, so all was well. The food in Charleston is utterly fantastic, if you’re willing to pay slightly insane prices. There’s a definite French flair that matches up surprisingly well with the other predominate style of cooking you find there, called lowcountry (it’s a southern thing). We had a fantastic dinner and then walked around the downtown area for about an hour afterwards before realizing that we were both exhausted and heading back to the hotel.
Saturday was bright and sunny, and we got a fairly early start. We ducked into a little hole in the wall place for breakfast not expecting much, but were pleasantly surprised- I had one of the best veggie omelets I can remember. We walked down to the house my great great…uhm great? grandfather spent his summers in, and walked around this really cool farmers market/craft fair before poking around some of the historic residential neighborhood. Another great lunch, and then it was down to the other end of town to walk along the waterside for a while before heading back to change and go for dinner.
After dinner we had quick drinks with my coworkers and headed off to find the symphony…and here’s where things get fun. I had pulled an address off the Symphony’s website, and gotten directions. We headed off after a gin and tonic or two with a few of the office crowd and found the address with no problem. I gave my name to the lady at the will-call both, and was handed two tickets. We walked in surprised to hear a performance already, but didn’t think anything of it until we got closer to the auditorium and heard…voices. Singing. Children singing. Er…what? This was supposed to be a symphony performance- no vocal. And, in any case, the first half was supposed to be Mozart…and even his vocal pieces were written in German. WTF?
After some discussion with the man taking the tickets, we confirmed that we were, indeed, at the wrong venue and wandered back out onto the street. A few phone calls later I at least had an address for the correct location, and we headed off. We get to the correct street and tried to decide whether to turn left or right. We deliberated. We discussed. We consulted oracles and prophets, and chose left. We chose wrong.
See, Charleston doesn’t believe in street numbers. Five blocks we walked before seeing a single street number- and that one turned out to be incorrect! Finally we ducked into a library and asked for directions. “Oh, Honey…you’re waay off course. You wanna go, hm, maybe 7 blocks the other direction…” the woman behind the front desk drawled.
Fantastic.
Well, to wrap up, we finally got to the place 20 minutes late. It was a lovely performance- almost worth the blisters I still have.
After 22 posted at 8:52 AM
