Arrival and Day 1 in Charleston

I know there have been many people wondering about my well being (i.e. Does Joseph have a place to stay/has he been killed by a "couch-surfer?) from all the phone calls, texts, wall posts, and inboxes I've gotten.  Just kidding, I might as well have just gotten an iPod touch.

The train ride down to Charleston was very uneventful.  I arrived in Washington D.C. at 7 am on Monday morning and my next train didn't leave until 10 am so I figured I might as well make the most of my time.  I left Union Station and walked to the 

From there I went to the 

and right next to that was the

From here I took a cab to the far end of the National Mall where I hung out with

There was some sort of ceremony going on at the base of this memorial and they couldn't help but film me.

Looking straight ahead from here was the

I felt very accomplished after my time in DC.  I was texting my friend Emilie while I was out and about and said something about how much of a pain hauling around my stuff was.  She responded with something along the lines of "You didn't rent a locker?"  Apparently there are luggage lockers in train stations so when you go on a picture marathon you don't have to haul around your duffel bag and look suspicious to every security guard at every important building in DC.  I will definitely store that useful travel tip for my future travels.

The train ride from DC to Charleston was about 9 hours and very uneventful.  I watched "City of God" and highly recommend it.  I got into Charleston, actually North Charleston, at about 7pm, bringing my total travel time to 22 hours. 

My first night in Charleston I spent at the "Notso Hostel," which I had to take a cab to from the train station which is in North Charleston.  I'm not sure why the owners preface "hostel" with "notso" because it was "verymuchso" a hostel.  It turns out that when I made my reservation online I booked it in the all girls room.  I didn't even know those existed in hostels.  I thought everything was communal, but apparently it isn't.  Luckily there were no females occupying the Victoria Room that night so I was able to stay.  I ditched my bags and walked the approximate half mile down the street to turn onto King Street, the main drag.  The shop owners had long gone home so I strolled down a relatively deserted street just looking for a place to grab a bite.  I walked past a bar looking place with exposed brick interior and red lighting and kept it in mind on my way back.  After I had walked far enough to decide that I wasn't going to be crashing any college parties where the guy/girl ratio would be split 36/64, I turned around and went to the restaurant with the red lighting and exposed brick.  I walked in and looked at the menu on the wall and saw it wasn't a bar, but rather an Italian restaurant.  Perfect.  I took a seat at the bar (don't want to be the person at the table by themselves) and decided on getting the shrimp pasta after looking at the menu. 


 A few minutes later the gentleman next to me was brought out an asparagus salad with an egg on top.  I promptly told the waitress taking care of me that I'll need one of those as well.  The asparagus was marinated and sautéed and the egg was cooked over medium.  I'm very glad I ordered it.  My pasta was delicious as well-lots of bail and lemon and the shrimp were quite delectable.  The dessert, however, took the cake (absolutely pun intended) for being the best course.  Honey-thyme gelato.  The texture was perfect and the flavor heavenly.  I left Manza and walked one door up to find the bar-looking place I had thought I was going to.  Good mistake.

On my return trip home I was offered crack twice, which made my decision to leave the hostel in the morning and move to the Days Inn all that easier.

After I left the hostel and checked in at the Days in I hotfooted it up the street to rent a

and then rode 10 miles (!) to get to the 

I had made it!!!  I was so excited.  The place was practically deserted so I pretended I owned a private beach for a while.  The water was really cold so I only

There were tons of 

strewn along the beach.  It was a cloudless day and I got a sunburn which I was more than happy to receive.

After eating a lunch consisting of a triple-decker peanut butter and Nutella sandwich I hopped back on the bike to ride another 10 miles.  The beach was actually on a separate island from Charleston so I had to ride across (background)

It was definitely a little nerve wracking but it did wonders for my prayer life.  Once across the James Island connector and back into Charleston I did some more riding around.  Once again, I had been communicating with my friend Emilie, who is actually coming to Charleston the day I leave (not a coincidence I'm sure), and she sent me a National Geographic article about free things to do in Charleston.  The article mentioned Battery Park and a string of houses known as Rainbow Row.  I rode along the edge of the peninsula looking out at the water to my right and the most beautiful homes to my left.  At the point of the peninsula is the city's Battery Park.

Here the road turns and starts going north again (if you're coming from the west).  After a little bit of a walk along a beautiful route I saw the famous houses.

They were all beautifully restored homes and are iconic in Charleston.  After this I returned my bike and went back to my room at the Days Inn.  After rinsing off the final bits of sand I got dressed and walked just a few blocks up the road from my hotel to Hyman's Seafood.  This is probably the most famous seafood restaurant in Charleston and consequently long lines form.  Fortunately for me the bar was full service so I grabbed a seat there and ordered a scallop po'boy sandwich with Swiss cheese and grilled onions.  It was a huge sandwich and the restaurant definitely lived up to the hype.  After I stayed there a while and talked to the cute bartender I walked down N. Market St. to find a place with live music.  It was Fat Tuesday, after all.  I walked past a joint called Aromas and there was a guy with a great Southern twang just wailing on a guitar and I knew I had arrived at my destination.  The guitar player actually only played a couple of more songs but then two piano players came on and spent the rest of the night belting out covers like "Friend in Low Places," "Picture," and "Sweet Caroline."  It was a great time had by all and a nice conclusion to my first day in Charleston.  

Alright, here we go!

Spring Break 2K11 has descended upon Boston College!  The jets flying to Punta Cana, Miami, Barcelona, and other prime destinations are packed with eager co-eds who have been looking forward to their Spring Break festivities since they first talked about "...that all inclusive resort in Cancun" with their 4 best buddies back in December.  Well, apparently my homework isn't the only thing I procrastinate with because my spring break destination was not finalized until about 3:00 pm on Saturday.  I had originally planned to go to Washington DC and stay with a family friend for the week.  And then that morphed into going to DC and meeting up with a guy I live down the hall from and going to the Outer Banks with him.  I finally settled on a destination as I was looking at the Interactive Route Atlas on Amtrak's website.  I followed the red squiggle from Boston, down to New York, a skip further to Philadelphia, kept traveling onto Washington DC, but then my eyes kept following the tracks south until I saw "Charleston, SC."  So Sunday night I'm getting on a train in Boston at 10 pm and arriving in Charleston at 7 pm on Monday.

     Of the few people that were still around when I bought my tickets on Amtrak, the overwhelming questions were "Oh, who do you know down there?" and "What are you going to do?"  The respective answers to these are "Not a soul and I haven't a clue."  There is the College of Charleston in downtown and its student body is split 64/36 female.  I guess it's a good place to go to meet new people.  As far as what I'm going to do, those options appear to be quite numerous.  There are beaches nearby, the USS Yorktown is across the peninsula, and I've heard the town itself is nice to walk around.  The most interesting question of this trip so far is "Joseph, where are you staying?"

    Now, in my defense, I did look up a hostel before I clicked the "purchase" button for my train tickets. What I didn't do though is click the "room availability" button.  Yowza.  Luckily there were rooms available for the 1st and 3rd nights that I will be staying in Charleston.  This only gets better.  After reading reviews and determining that there was only one hostel in Charleston that would actually be better than just sleeping in the streets, I started to ponder where else I could sleep.  A brilliant idea came to me but my excitement was quickly shattered when I saw that it was $25 for a camping permit and on top of that I don't even have my sleeping pad out in Boston.  I'll just go throw a hammock in between trees by the beach before I pay the same price as a night in the hostel to camp.  I was just starting to contemplate my odds of meeting some local college kids that would befriend me and offer me a place to stay when another (maybe brilliant/not so brilliant) idea came to me- couch surfing.  I have heard of the concept but never done it or known anybody that has.  Couchsurfing.org is a website that you join and make a profile on and can search for other members in your destination and request their couch for a couple of nights.  So I've spent about 2 hours today looking through profiles of Couch Surfers and sending "CouchRequests" to the ones that deemed trustworthy.  It seems like a very open-minded, trustworthy community so I'm not terribly worried about anything, but I know my mom will be when/if she reads this so I just want to say "Mom, I'll be ok and will call you if I need you to come pick me up."  I've got 2 twenty hour train rides ahead of me in the next week so the blogs should be rolling out.  Cheers.