Charleston, SC

Alex and I have been in Charleston, South Carolina for the past 4 days. I didn't think we would stay this long, but it just turned out that way. Charleston is not as beautiful or charming as Savannah, but still a nice city. The historic downtown area has very old homes dating anywhere from the 1680s to the 1800s. Definitely a lot older than Savannah. Of course it's roots started about 60 years before Savannah, so it makes sense. I was expecting Charleston to be just as beautiful as Savannah, but it's just not. I mean it does have some pretty amazing buildings; the drawbacks are that it is more crowded, more expensive, and there are more bums. Savannah has a law against panhandling. If you are caught panhandling it is a 250 dollar fine and if you can't pay it then you have to jail. It's a great incentive for the homeless there to work for their money. Maybe, I would have found Charleston a little more interesting if we spent the money on touring more museums, but we still want to make it back to California. It is so hard sticking to a budget when traveling. Way harder than I thought it would be.





We walked the streets of Charleston and admired the old buildings. Many of the historical homes have a little plaques of info describing when it was built and who lived there. It was nice to learn a little history for free.

One of the historical places we did end up spending a pretty penny on was touring Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is where the Civil War began. It was the first battle of the war and it was won by the Confederate side. South Carolina was the first State to secede from the Union. After winning the battle at Fort Sumter, the fort was occupied by the Confederate army for the rest of the war. Fort Sumter is basically in ruins today, but before the major destruction of it, it looked like a pretty amazing fort. The building of the fort started in the 1820s and at the time of the battle there it was 90% complete. So, it took about 40 years of building. It was three stories high and the walls were 5 feet thick. The top two stories of the fort were destroyed in the Civil War, but the first story still remains partly intact today.







Alex and I have been getting really homesick. We just want to see some familiar faces and in Charleston we did! Alex's cousin Daniel and his wife Laura came to Charleston a few days ago and we got to spend a couple of hours with them yesterday. They are here for a wedding of a friend and I was so happy and grateful that they were able to spend some time with Alex and I. Laura is one of the bridesmaids in the wedding, so to take some time aside to spend with us was really nice. We walked around the historic downtown area with them. It was our second time walking around that area and for some reason it seemed to be much more charming; maybe it was the added company:)




So, Alex and I spend a ton of time at Starbucks coffee, just to waste time and do something that is cheap and/or free. I mean you can only do so much touristy stuff in one day, right? This is our way of just chilling and passing the time. We spend hours using their free wifi. Alex just introduced me to the website stumbleupon.com and I'm absolutely addicted now! If you haven't heard of it, I'll tell you about it. It is a site that helps you find cool websites that you would find interesting, basically catering to your own personal interests. It has a list of different interests that you can check box and then it will take you to websites that you might find interesting when you click on the "stumble" button. It's great for surfing the web and you don't have to worry about any weird or scam sites. I have found some pretty interesting stuff using the website. If you know about the site then you already know that it is a huge time waster, but I say if you have the time to "stumble" then have at it.




I think we may be in Charleston for one more day and then we will be off to our next destination, Columbia, which is the capital of South Carolina. We are trying to hit up every state capital if we can. We have a little place in our hearts for state capitals because we are from the state capital of California.