Charleston

Charleston is beautiful but I found it dark. It was amazing to walk several times a day past a low one story brick building with no windows to speak up of and many sections barred off. We eventually found a sign on it that said ‘Black Market’. I immediately and naively assumed that meant the sale of illicit and illegal goods. But of course, why would you put a sign on it. However, Matt looked dubiously at me when I asked what the market was for and I was shocked out of my ignorance. Now this long low market has a lot of little shops in it selling a variety of things from jewelry to baskets to, amazingly, a lot of African artifacts.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn down town and walked to St. Philip’s Church every morning past, among other things, a key shop in front of which there were a lot of keys and locks planted in the sidewalk cement. We ate both nights at an “Irish” pub which sold a lot of various fried fishes, sea food, burgers and the very good Salmon Spinach Salad. Other than that we saw nothing of Charleston except the airport (brown, horrible ceiling, more brown). I hope this won’t be my last visit to the real South.