Charleston: Days 1-3

When one of my good girlfriends decided to have her wedding in Charleston, SC, not only was I excited for her, but I was also excited because Charleston is a city I've never had any reason to visit, but one I've always wanted to see! I started checking flights a couple months before the wedding and soon discovered direct flights from New York to Charleston are no joke - nearly all of them were over $500. After some conferring with a friend in Atlanta who was also attending the wedding, I decided my best option would be the much cheaper flight to Atlanta, and then making the drive with her back up to Charleston.

I took the first flight out of LaGuardia on Friday morning, a 6:00am AirTran flight. And please let the record show that booking a flight on AirTran was frustrating because to select your seat, they actually charge additional fees. So I opted to not have an assigned seat and just hope for the best when I arrived at the airport. I was also a little annoyed because I have been trying to fly exclusively on Delta to build up my SkyMiles, but the Delta flight to Atlanta was significantly more expensive than the AirTran, so I was backed into a little bit of a corner with that.  All's well that ends well, though, and I wasn't at the very back of the plane, so that's good news!  I landed in Atlanta a little before 8:00am, grabbed some much-needed Chick Fil A and waited for my friend to come scoop me up.  By 9:30am we were on our way!  The ride was long and uneventful, and approximately six hours later we were pulling in to the Courtyard Charleston Waterfront, the official wedding hotel, which we had reserved back at the end of December for the somewhat pricey rate of $189/night. The room was beautiful with its scenic view of the pool and the inlet from the Atlantic Ocean.  I was disappointed we had to quickly get ready and head off to the rehearsal and dinner, as the sun was hot in the sky and the pool looked oh so inviting!

The view from our hotel room:

After calling a cab, we were off to the First Baptist Church of Charleston, which was built in 1682 and the oldest Southern Baptist church in the country.  While I am not in the wedding party, my friend is, so I got to (had to) tag along.  The church was very pretty - everything was white and wooden.  There were some interesting artifacts at the back of the church, a "museum" of sorts for this 330 year old building, that kept me busy while the rehearsal was in progress.

After the rehearsal, we piled into cars and were on our way to the rehearsal dinner being held at 39 Rue de Jean, a French brasserie with a large area upstairs for private parties.  All the standard uncomfortably long and awkward speeches, slideshows no one really cares to see and drunk wedding party were out in full force.  By the end I was exhausted - it had already been a long day for me, I didn't know anyone there and I was just ready to get some sleep.  Everyone else had a different idea, of course, so around 11:30pm we were on our way to a post-dinner bar, O-Ku.  The main memory I have from this place, which was a Japanese sushi/fusion restaurant, was just being TIRED.  We had a drink and chatted with some of our new wedding friends, and then I had to get out of there before I passed out.  

On Saturday, we were up early (at my request) because I wanted to get to see some of Charleston.  We went to a brunch spot my friend had found and heard great things about (and made a 10 am reservation for) called Virginia's on King.

It was delicious!  I had the country fried steak and eggs (steak and eggs have become my new go-to on brunch menus for some reason...consistent perhaps?).  You know you're in the South when you can get out of Sunday brunch for under $20!  After brunch we walked around for a while...being early on a Sunday, most shops were closed, but this was definitely a vibrant downtown area with lots of boutiques.  Walking around I was also struck by the amount of tourists...this is not a town I ever thought of as being touristy, but it definitely is.  It has more the feel of a beach town than just a regular Southern town (which is how I always had pictured it) - palm trees on every corner!  We did finally call a cab and get dropped off back at the hotel so we could get ready for the 2pm wedding.

The wedding was beautiful and when we walked out of the church, we could tell it was going to start pouring at any moment (there had been rain forecast the entire day...yuck), so we quickly made a decision about where to go grab some lunch.  Of course every single place in town was overflowing with people, so it took a while before we could actually find a spot where we could sit down, eat and have a drink.  Not to mention, running along the cobblestone sidewalks and roads in heels was most unpleasant.  Charleston + Heels = NO!  We finally settled on the Blind Tiger Pub, and just in the nick of time because the bottom fell out and it continued to monsoon for the next two hours - just in time for us to head to the reception.  Which reminds me, what's the deal with splitting up the wedding and the reception?  Made for an unnecessarily long day in my opinion.  Anyways.

We arrived just after 5pm at the Thomas Bennett House, a beautiful antebellum home with an expansive garden that had been set up with a large tent for the reception.  The stairs Laura came down in her dress was a "free-flying staircase," which made for a really stunning entrance: 

Had the rain held off, this would have been a beautiful evening at a gorgeous home with delicious food and a fun band.  As it was, the humidity was suffocating and my heels sunk into the muddy grass all night long and I couldn't get into the shower fast enough... oh well!  It was still fun, of course.  :)

After hours of eating and drinking and dancing (after a while, we went down to bare feet so you can imagine how disgusting I was), we called it a night and headed back to the hotel, where I took one of the best showers of my life.  On Sunday morning, we were up early again and met up with my other friend Nicole who just happened to also be in town.  We parked at a garage directly across from Husk, our brunch location for the morning.  This restaurant was AMAZING!  It was all Southern cuisine and locally-sourced; a chalkboard at the front of the restaurant indicated which farms certain menu items came from.  So for my meal, I had the South Carolina shrimp and grits, tomato braised peppers and onions, poached green grocer egg and Surry sausage.  Yum!  After brunch, we headed outside onto the front porch, where there was an interest bench I had never seen before.  After a little Googling, we were able to determine what it was and how it worked.  This was an authentic joggling board!  It was a moving swing-like bench that sort of looks like a very long sawhorse, and we learned they have been around since the early 1800s and are a part of early Lowcountry life; many still exist on the porches of old homes (which is what Husk was located in).  We probably played on the joggling board for 15 minutes...so fun!

The joggling board:

Girls on the joggling board:

After saying bye to Nicole, we got back into the car and before heading out of town, my friend (who had been to Charleston many times, by the way), drove us through Rainbow Row, a block of historic, pastel-colored homes and the most photographed buildings in Charleston.  The buildings had been around for a while but were renovated in the early 1900s.  A couple myths to explain the colorful painting job include helping intoxicated sailors coming in from port remember which houses they were to bunk in, or even dating back to when the buildings were used as stores so that owners could tell illiterate slaves which building to go to for shopping.  We continued driving along that street as it rounded a bend and the Atlantic Ocean was laying out in front of us with beautiful homes opposite the water.  This was definitely my favorite part of Charleston I saw over the course of the weekend - it was colorful and beachy and elegant all at once.

Rainbow Row:

At this point, it was time to make the drive back to Atlanta for my 7pm flight back to New York.  Once again, not much to report on the drive.  Just a lot of expensive gas!  Definitely one thing I am not missing being without a car here in New York.  I was back home a little after 10pm and crashed hard!  

To wrap up, I think Charleston is a place I'd enjoy visiting again in the future.  Next time, I'd carve out a day for the beach and another day for a little more sightseeing.  I didn't really do any research on "things to do" in town because I knew I'd be busy, but I did notice a few things that looked like they'd be fun - the Palmetto Carriage Tours, for one (they have historic residence tours, ghost tours, etc. all on the palmetto carriage...so cute!).  

And that's another trip in the books for me!

My trip:

"In my mind I'm going to Carolina,

Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine?

Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind." - Carolina in My Mind, James Taylor

Miles Traveled Today: 2,400

Total Miles Traveled: 36,509