East Coast, What?
After a drive across the widest part of the state of Florida, from Pensacola to St Augustine, we were finally back on the East Coast after leaving almost three months earlier. It finally hit us that we’d be back soon, a very odd feeling somewhere in between relief and nervousness. While we spent the last three months mostly thinking about the places we would be in a few days, we were now forced to think about all those life decisions we had put on hold, like which city we would be moving to when all this was over (and unlike we originally thought, our traveling did little to help us come to a conclusion on that).
We arrived in St Augustine, America’s oldest city, in the early evening to check in to our pirate-themed hostel, the Pirate Haus. Then it was on to PizzAlley’s for guess what… pizza! We read some promising reviews, and I really liked it but em was not a fan (I can dig me a big ole’ crust, but she’s a thin crust lady).
The next day we enjoyed Pirate Haus’ signature pancake breakfast — with pirate shaped pancakes of course. Then it was on to check out St Augustine’s interesting and very old (by American standards) architecture. We wandered around the Castillo de San Marcos, a big fort on the waterfront, then started to make our way to St Augustine’s main attraction, the Fountain of Youth. For those of you who don’t know, I was in a band called ‘Ponce de Leon’ for a while, so the Fountain holds a special spot in my heart (even though Ponce himself wasn’t such a great guy). The Fountain of Youth was the cheesy tourist destination we expected, and seemed like it hadn’t been updated since in 1950’s (they claimed to have the oldest manually operated planetarium in the US, not sure if I’d brag about that though).
After we gained eternal youth — don’t worry, we brought some home for my parents too — we checked out more of St Augustine. We refused to pay the $15 to see the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum, then went to see the oldest house in the country and some other old buildings. This town was actually really interesting to walk around in, but was probably one of the worst tourist traps we have been to. If you’re into ghosts, St Augustine has over 100 different ghost tours — they will of course cost you an arm and a leg though. All the walking around to see things we couldn’t afford was getting us hungry, so we decided to get some good seafood at O.C. White’s. Then, I couldn’t resist the beer list at the bar JP Henley’s next door, so we stopped in for a drink. There, we tried a drink that we fell in love with: a “Chocolate Covered Raspberry” — fill a glass halfway with framboise (Belgian raspberry ale), then top the rest off with chocolate stout (we had Young’s) — a dessert drink worth it’s weight in gold. Emily of course wasn’t satisfied with just beer for dessert, so we got some more desserts at a local hotel restaurant (we were living large).
The next morning we chatted with the Pirate Haus owner, finding out that he was also on Couchsurfing and we could have had some free accommodations (that doesn’t seem to make much business sense to me, but to each their own). Then, it was up the Eastern Seaboard to visit Savannah, GA, home of Southern hospitality. Our first stop was for lunch at a chain all over the south called Mellow Mushroom. I don’t know why they haven’t exported this veg-friendly eatery to every college town in the US yet, but we loved the veggie pizza, tempeh hoagie, and my organic Lakefront ESB beer. We also checked out local artists at the Savannah College of Art and Design store, got some excellent cupcakes, and walked down to the river front. Walking around Savannah, it reminded us of our old home base in Jersey City (and my childhood home of Park Slope, Brooklyn). Lots of beautiful brownstone buildings, with tree filled squares – or mini parks – every few blocks. Plus, everyone was extremely nice, and walking into a store meant getting into a 20 minute conversation. If only we could afford to live in an expensive place with very few jobs.
After a few hours in Savannah, we headed further up the coast to Charleston, SC. There, we met up with our couchsurfing host Lee, and another couchsurfer Yang who was staying there as well. We all headed into downtown Charleston to grab some dinner at the famous Jestine’s Kitchen (visited by Rachel Ray – it’s cheap!). We chowed down on some fried okra, corn bread with butter and honey, a shrimp po’ boy (much better than our Nawlins version), mac n’ cheese, pecan pie and Coca Cola Cake (weird but good). After that, Lee gave us a quick driving tour of the city.
The next day, Yang left for New York, and we headed back into Charleston. On our way in, we stopped by the Charleston Coffee Roasters which we looked up online, but found out quickly it was actually just their corporate headquarters. We still ended up buying a bag of organic coffee, but had to go elsewhere for our immediate caffeine fix (and we also ran into the guy we met there a couple hundred miles away at an Earth Fare natural foods store). We wandered around town checking out some landmarks like the fountain and waterfront at Battery Park, and the City Market. Then, it was on to a great soup and sandwich restaurant called Five Loaves hidden inside a music store (odd place for a restaurant). And we wouldn’t be satisfied without dessert, so we got our second batch of cupcakes in two days.
That night we went with Lee and some of his coworkers to trivia night at a local bar. Our luck was down in the first round, but we ended up getting first place for a $25 free tab the next round. Unfortunately we had already paid (enjoy it Lee – and pour one out for your homies).
Thanks so much Lee for an awesome time in Charleston. Emily will be thinking of you when she goes skydiving.
Now, onto Asheville, North Carolina.
Sun of the Beach
We made it to Mom and Tim’s place in sunny Pensacola Beach in the early evening and celebrated with some Domino’s Brooklyn style pizza and a few Tivo’d shows that I am totally out of the loop with. It was great to relax and hang with the fam.
The next day we took our R & R to the next level with a walk on the beach, a dip in the pool and all the magazine reading we could handle. In the evening, we had a great dinner at Cabo Grill, a cute Mexican/Seafood place on the boardwalk. But, best of all, we hopped over to Flounder’s for a to-go order of their Key Lime Pie. Okay, this is no ordinary slice of pie…it’s actually three slices stacked on top of each other. When you get it to-go, it’s basically half of a Key Lime Pie for about $6. Delicious.
We were originally going to stay for a few nights, but, due to a few circumstances (the sun, sand, warmth, bed to sleep in, TiVo, and cuteness of my mom), we decided to stay for a whole week instead. I guess we were really feeling the need to plant some roots somewhere (even if the roots only had a week to grow). A lot of that week was spent lounging around, relaxing, and picking out stucco colors for the beach house, but there were some great highlights.
Highlight 1: We had a great dinner get together with some beach neighbors, Beverly and Gregor. Over some veggie lasagna and salad, we chatted about sailing, carbon credits, building houses and hip replacements (you know, the normal dinner topics).
Highlight 2: Again, revolving around food, we had another yummy meal with family friends, Dave and Mary, to celebrate our engagement and catch up on some details of our trip. It’s always good to see them…however short and sweet.
Highlight 3: We also got to relive some of my childhood memories by going to see the Blue Angels fly across the sky and do crazy tricks. And I guess that I’m still an 8 year old at heart because I was pretty impressed. Apparently they fly with their wings less than a foot away from the next plane. Scary. Check out the videos.
Highlight 4: A nice lunch (with a view!) on the boardwalk followed by a tasty ice cream cone in the sun.
Even without all these Florida highlights, it was just really nice to get to spend some time with my fam. We can’t thank my mom and Tim enough for helping us get enough rest and recuperation to conquer the rest of the stops on our list. Next stop, St. Augustine, FL…back to the eastern seaboard.
Alligator Soup
We yodeled back at our cowboy homies in Texas and cast our lassos towards Louisiana…New Orleans, to be specific. But before we made it to the big bayou land, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for a cheap dinner. Mmmm, biscuits.
We arrived at our hotel (booked through Bookit.com) to find out that although the online special reflected free parking, they were out of spots in their garage and we were out of luck. Bummer. Then, for some reason, we were charged twice (by the website and then by the hotel) which meant our first night in the Big Easy was spent on the phone trying to get a refund for our cute but moldy and damp hotel room. And, the streetcar wasn’t yet functional near our hotel (though it said it was on the website). We decided to shorten our stay from two nights to one.
We checked out of the hotel the next morning and headed over to the French Quarter for a free morning tour led by a National Parks Service docent. The tour was fantastic and taught us a lot about the early New Orleans settlers and the beautiful historic buildings that line the streets. We also stumbled upon a house (an old Spanish style cottage) that was for sale for a measly 2 million dollars.
Next it was over to the famous Cafe du Monde for beignets (french donuts with tons of powdered sugar on them) and a chicory cafe au lait. We also bought a batch of beignets to bring to my mom, but they get stale pretty fast and then just taste like sweet rubber. As we chowed down, Nick ran down the street to catch up with a parade of Ferrari’s driving around (yes, he’s a dork). After our coffee and sugar kick, it was time to walk around and check out some neat stores (the Nawlins Cookery School, a voodoo store, and a few Bourbon Street souvenir shops).
All that shopping worked up an appetite, so we headed to The Gumbo Shop, a NOLA eatery popular with tourists, for lunch. We ordered a shrimp po boy and a bowl of seafood gumbo…both were pretty bad. We probably just didn’t spend enough time looking for a place to eat. Lesson learned.
Our last stops in Nawlins consisted of a cemetery visit (but, alas, it was a Sunday and the place was closed) and a candy shop visit where we bought some pralines and one of the best caramel apples I’ve ever had.
Altogether, despite our bad experience with accommodations, New Orleans was a vibrant city with a ton of history and culture to offer. We didn’t see much damage left from Katrina since we didn’t really visit the areas that were most affected by the storm (the poorer, non-tourist areas were hardest hit). We originally planed to try to help with some rebuilding efforts while we were there, but didn’t end up with enough time or planning far enough ahead. Despite that, it was amazing to hear how much our tour guide loved the area and we know people like her will help Nawlins continue to be such an amazing place.
