Doing the Charleston!

Spotted on the road out of Savannah...
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We arrived in Charleston after a brief stop in Tybee Island where we stayed in a great little B&B just outside of town. We've decided to alternate between staying at B&B/hotels and hostels as we figure this will spread the budgeting dollar out a bit further, but it will still feel like we are living it up a little! Plus, there aren't many hostels around here!

So, seeing as we had just stayed at a B&B it was time to bunk down in a hostel in Charleston. Emma had booked this one ahead of our arrival this time just in case we ran into the same problems we had in Savannah, reserving us a couple of bunks at the 'Not So Hostel' in downtown Charleston (it wasn’t really downtown but close enough). The Lonely Planet had described the area it was located in as a 'sketchy but up and coming neighborhood' so, as you can imagine, we were filled with high expectations.

What the??!!
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The Lonely Planet's description was pretty spot on. The area certainly had it's own 'character' and it was a bit surreal seeing houses on one side of the road that were almost falling down and directly opposite, recently renovated carbon copies that had probably just sold for a bucket! The hostel itself was a bit scary at first glance but once we checked in and made ourselves comfortable it was pretty cool.

We arrived in Charleston on the weekend leading up to Halloween so there was a real buzz about town. Charleston has a university so there were endless parties and events happening to celebrate Halloween, all of which involved getting dressed up (in costumes obviously) so it sort of limited our social plans for the stay. After searching the social pages of the newspaper for places that would accept us in our everyday attire we stumbled across an 'indy folk-pop' band that was playing at one of the downtown pubs. It sounded pretty cool and there was no mention of Halloween or costumes anywhere in the advertisement so we decided to give it a go.

Beautiful downtown Charleston
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Before heading out we fueled up at a famous local diner called Jestines Kitchen where we got to sample our first authentic Southern dinner, which for me consisted of Southern fried chicken (finger lickin' good!) and coleslaw, whilst Em planned to chow down on some mac and cheese with a side of green beans. The only problem was that unbeknownst to Emma the beans had been cooked in a pork broth, unbeknownst until after the first mouthful that it is… Mmmmm! Needless to say we ended up swapping our sides.

Ditto
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So after dinner we headed down to the pub to catch the show. Lucky for the band that we did because we ended up being the only ones there for the majority of the show! It was like we had our own private band for the night which was great, a little weird but great! They were actually really good and we felt a bit sorry for them because if it wasn't for Halloween they probably would have had a bigger crowd. They obviously felt sorry for us though as they kept apologizing to us for the lack of atmosphere, and to the barman as he wouldn't be getting many tips that night!

The Hominy Grill
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The next morning we headed out for a tour of Charleston. It's true what they say about Charleston, it is a lot like Savannah but on a smaller scale but it's just as interesting and the tour was great. We decided to stick to dry land this time and take a tour on one of the horse drawn carriages that go around town. We had a great tour guide that kept us entertained the whole way, along with the slightly deaf lady from Washington DC who was screaming in my ear for most of the tour!

Before we set off for Asheville we squeazed in time for a good ol' Southern breakfast at another one of the town's diners, the Hominy Grill, where we managed to fit in some fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, and biscuits before hitting the road again headed for Asheville, North Carolina!