Southern Swing, May 2010, Day 5 - Charleston

At long last, Saturday came. This entire trip was inspired by and designed around a wedding. And today, after a few cities and states and hotels and many meals, the wedding day has arrived. But what to do before the wedding?

We decided to take a walk down Meeting Street to the waterside. To the water and back should take just the right amount of time for us to return in time for someone's mani/pedi at the spa. And no, that someone is not yours truly.

When you walk down the street in Charleston, South Carolina, where one encounters more churches than Starbucks, you often find yourself saying, "You know, if I just walk out into the street I can get a great shot." And I did. Believe it or not, that is a heavily trafficked street. But I cared not. There was a picture to be taken.

We came across Washington Park, with a statue of our first President as well as a replica of the District of Columbia's Washington Monument. Oh, how I want to curse now. We were in a hurry, but just now I realized that we should have taken our time taking perspective shots with this Mini-Washington-Monument and then mixed them with pics from our last D.C. trip.

For the record, said D.C. trip was for a wedding. Seeing a pattern?

More dead people. I love that Charleston is like Europe this way, with easily accessible graveyards.

We made it to Battery Park along the waters.

Can you imagine trying to aim one of these? I mean, really, warfare before computers was extremely imprecise. It is ridiculous that we bothered, considering how inefficient it was.

A Failed Experiment. I thought, maybe I can do a panorama when between each shot I walk instead of turn. Not even an interesting failure, really.

Battery Park, old timey style.

A picture of Mrs. Howard taking a picture of a sundial monument. A monument to... I have no idea.

The Miles Brewton House. I took a picture of the plaque, which means that I can tell you that this is an, "outstanding example of Georgian Architecture in America. Built between 1765 and 1769 by Miles Brewton, with designs of Ezra Waite, architect..." The reason for the ellipse is that the plaque went on to list who the house was passed down to and that it was British Headquarters from 1780-82 and then Federal Headquarters in 1865.

There. History has not been ignored.

Barbie shows off another lovely home. At this point, we were walking home as fast as we could, behind schedule.

Behind schedule or not, I had seen on my iPhone's Google map the intersection ahead and I was going to get this shot.

We made it back to hotel, Barbie got her mani/pedi, and soon we were doing the sort of math that you do on a day you are going to a wedding. The math goes like this: the wedding is at such and such time, meaning the reception cannot be sooner, than so and so, which means that we will have gone this many hours without eating if we do not eat right now.

Directly across from our hotel is another cafe, the Sweetwater Cafe. Having tried Cafe Cafe yesterday, we thought we would try Sweetwater Cafe today.

It may not be pretty, but it will damn sure keep a man alive to fight another day.

What I do not have a picture of is Lori and Marshall, the groovy cool couple from New York City whom we met at the BBQ the night before. They walked right into Sweetwater Cafe as we were eating, and agreed to our pleas to join us at our table.

If our home had an entry hall similar to this, I imagine that we would have reached the point where absolutely everyone wants to slap us.

Showers were taken and clothes were donned. Time for a wedding.

The Huguenot Church of Charleston. If you read Colossal Waste during the summer of 2009 trip around Europe, you might recall that the Huguenots, or French Calvinists, were driven from France due to, well, intolerant Catholics. Amsterdam became a global power because Holland welcomed the Huguenots and Jews who were driven out of their home countries; if you study your history you soon see that everywhere a tolerant government or king allowed and protected the minorities being driven out of other nations, everyone involved thrived socially and economically from the shared knowledge and experience of the cultures interacting. Which is to say, not only is it that not knowing your history dooms you to repeat it, but not knowing your history might doom you to not repeat the good parts of history as well.

Apparently French Catholic intolerance made the trip across the Atlantic, as the Huguenots were banned from New France, soon to be called French Canada and eventually Quebec. In North America, Huguenots primarily relocated in New York and South Carolina. Who knew?

And, just to tie it all together, on the trip that has yet to make the Waste, the trip through South Africa in 2008, we visited Franschoek, the Huguenot region of South Africa where the Huguenots brought French wine making to a new continent in the late 1600's.

Sick of history? Understandable. Look at the church above again and pretend that I simply typed, "Pretty church."

Inside, the Bride and Groom and their bridal party. Am I the only one who has noticed that the word, "groom," is synonymous with, "groomed," or "grooming"? As in, a man is an unkempt beast until he becomes a Groom and gets his act cleaned up by a woman? Sexism abounds.

Back at the reception, the Bride smiles for the paparazzi.

In this reception shot one sees no fewer than five new friends that we made on this trip. How cool is that?

Sure, you have seen me get a pic of a pic being taken before. But have I ever gotten a good shot of the screen of the other camera? I think not. And look at that. In my shot you see the whole shebang, including the fact that Hilary has zoomed in on Lori & Marshall's faces. It is a bit dim, making the colors a tad off. Wait.

Ahhh... that is better.

People, I want to call them rude but I am not sure that is fair, kept stopping in the hotel lobby and staring into the wedding reception. Their faces all said, "Is that a wedding in there?"

Guest photographer Lori (last name, unknown) snaps one of yours truly. I should point out that I was the only man at the party who did the black shirt thing. Perhaps I do not fit in entirely well in the South. Still, trust me. The black shirt and green tie... fine, I will finally do a racially motivated Southern joke... made my skin look significantly lighter than it is, allowing me to experience a, shall we say, friendlier experience in the South.

I know that was wrong.

This caricature artist need a punch in the mouth. He made us, and everyone we know, look terrible. Seriously. His caricatures resembled the doodles of a cruel school kid who would draws the classmates he hates looking horrible just to mock them. And, for the record, the two models sitting there are two of my favorite people from the wedding. But, yeah, I share this pic not because they are cool to talk to but because they are pretty. Sexism abounds.

The rare shot of Mr. and Mrs. Howard, our animal magnetism so powerful that it made the photographer's hand shake.

We were very, very lucky. As the wedding wrapped up we were invited to go down the street to the superhip hotel with the rooftop bar. We were invited by Dimitri, who happened to be the head chef there. This meant that he ordered some amazing appetizers for us, including Duck Confit Nachos and Lobster & Scallop Ceviche and Mushroom & Lobster Pizza. Deliciousness. However, it was too dark for pics. Try to not cry.

Rooftop hipness. Thankfully, the rest of the wedding attendees made it over to the rooftop a few hours after we got there, and it became the official wedding after party.

It was like... being in Los Angeles.