Doing Charleston - Day One Pictures

 Well let's see how our internet works at 6:20am...GOOD! 

Later this morning...not so good. Worked with the property management company while we were out. They identified the problem and have given us other networks to connect with. So far so good.

We are making use of a very helpful app call GPSmyCity which for a very reasonable annual subscription rate (less than $20) give us access to maps, curated tours, ability to create custom tours, etc.  The GPS underpinning things is very good. Easy to use a quite accurate. 

Charleston is a city with over 400 years of history. It was one of the key cities of colonial, antebellum, and recent Southern history. It had great wealth. And wealth leads to great architecture. It has a marvelous cityscape and is very walkable city especially now in mid-autumn when the temperatures are very pleasant and the humidity is low. You wouldn't be making those statements in mid-summer when it is brutally hot and humid!

You cannot talk about the wealth and history of this city and avoid the history of slavery in the United States. For Charleston was one of the prime cities for the slave trade. I am not intending for this short visit to go into great depth on this subject. But I am not going to ignore it either. As a person who is deeply committed in social impact work now with dealing with modern slavery (via Theodora Africa and the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking), I obviously have some strong feelings on the subject. But because of my deep interest and ongoing interest in history, I also have some perspectives that might strike one as odd given my current work in this arena. That will be for a later post. For now, let's get on with our first day pictures.

Neo-Classical Architecture at the Hibernian Society

Did I know that Charleston and America's first fireproof building?

St. Michael's, Oldest Church in Charlston

Graveyard by the church with a couple of signers of the Declaration of Independence (we didn't find them)

Charleston City Hall by Washington Square with more neoclassical architecture

Low Country Architectural Repair Scaffolding

Notice the subtle differences from the European repair scaffolding

Misc Stuff walking down Meeting Street

Nathaniel Russell House

(Example of what can be done from the profits of slave labor)

Street Art and Street Scenes

Harbor Scene

Gastronomy

First night after much wandering and gnashing of teeth over $40-$50 entree prices, we found a Caribbean inspired place that was pretty reasonable

Wife had a Fried Fish Sandwich

I had a Chorizo Burger which had the chorizo mixed in with the ground beef. The slaw had some kind of hot chile in it. And look at the ripeness of that tomato!

On Wednesday, we ate (strictly by chance) at a well known local place

We decided to split two starters and one main. But the portions were so huge we brought half back to the apartment.

She crab soup on the left, fried chicken with hoppin' john (black eye peas and rice) and collard greens, mac and cheese. I gave high marks to everything. Even the hoppin' john had good flavor (which is often not the case)