You have homemade blackberry cobbler?! I'll have some with ice cream, please.

Well this post is long overdue and a lot of it isn't that relevant anymore but there are definitely some meals I need to blog about. As far as my adventures in Charleston, after the first day I mainly just walked around the city during the day and ate at night. I went to mass at the cathedral on Ash Wednesday, went to the Old Slave Mart Museum on Thursday, and took a nap in the sunshine on Friday.

Jestine's Kitchen is a gem of a restaurant I stumbled upon.  It's a real life version on the Cracker Barrel.  Yes, I know Cracker Barrel's are obviously real, but Jestine's feels like you're walking into a real person's kitchen, not a movie set.  Jestine's embodies everything that is right about Southern hospitality; the delicious food, welcoming atmosphere, and cute waitress.   Jestine was the daughter of a Native American mother and a freed slave father. She died at the ripe old age of 102 and I'm convinced she lasted so long because she ate such delicious

and guzzled gallons of

 (sweet tea!)

The blue plate special that day was a whopping portion of shrimp creole.  After polishing that off I still managed to have room for some of that blackberry cobbler.







Jestine's was a late lunch for me so I didn't have any dinner, but did stop back by Manza for a little late night snack of gelato.

      Without a doubt my favorite part of the city of Charleston are its buildings.  They are very old and have a hint of Spanish influence in the architecture.  I was more than satisfied with meandering the streets and thinking about the many stories that had been told on the porches that every building had.



On Thursday I walked down the historic, cobblestone Chalmers St. to get to the Old Slave Mart Museum.  Even though it was $7, I knew that if my mom would have been there she would have gone for sure, so I did it for her sake.  It was a quite interesting place.  Turns out the most expensive slaves were sold for around an equivalent of $40,000 in today's dollar.  That night I stopped by Hyman's again for some delicious

After a shower I headed to a restaurant called Anson's that I had scoped out earlier in the day (always thinking ahead).  I started off my dining experience by enjoying a crispy risotto in a cream sauce.  My main course-crispy flounder-came highly recommended from the two cougars sitting next to me.

                                                              

My conversation with the creeping cougars eventually revealed that one of the ladies was the owner of the establishment, and her more...outgoing friend blabbed about her ex-boyfriend who was a lawyer and asked me to show her how to use her blackberry.  It was kind of an odd night.

The following day was my last in Charleston and I spent it napping in the sunlight at the battery and watching the dolphins hat the Harbor Park.

That night my friends Emilie and Kaston drove in to town and we went to Justine's together and enjoyed some hookah down by the Old Market before they were kind enough to drop me off at the train station to begin my trek home.  This blog has been sitting unpublished for weeks now so I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, which is probably a good thing.