Or My 2010 US Deep South trip (part 4 of 4)
I like to be in America, OK by me in America,
Everything free in America, For a small fee in America.
West Side Story
Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.
WEDNESDAY 2/6/10
North from St Mary’s to Savannah today – another attractive historic city on the Georgia coast, with lovely old buildings. The city was established in 1733, and has many grand 18th century homes and churches.
Or My 2010 US Deep South trip (part 3 of 4)
I like to be in America, OK by me in America,
Everything free in America, For a small fee in America.
West Side Story
Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
FRIDAY 28/5/10
The Spoleto Festival USA proper started today, and crowds were on the streets. We walked through the large market at Marion Square, where I bought a commemorative festival T-shirt, and then we went to the visitors’ centre to buy tickets to some events. On the way back, we dropped in on an art and craft expo, where I topped up on hand-crafted jewellery. There was some lovely stuff there. (It’s my duty as a tourist, after all, to prop up the local economy.)
The Pleasures of the Royal Courts (madrigal singers) event was in the Presbyterian church, and I really enjoyed it, especially as Jane and I sat in my favourite spot for live concerts – as far up the front as possible. The medieval instruments, like the crumhorn, were laid out on the pew in front of us, so we couldn’t get much closer. Next to me was an artist sketching the musicians with watercolour pencils as they performed. We got talking – she lived in the Bahamas, had an apartment in New York City, and went to the Charleston festival every year. A hard life! The singing was glorious and transporting.
SATURDAY 29/5/10
Today I went to a Sacred Harp shape-note singing ‘performance’, which wasn’t really a performance but a worship gathering. I was on the lookout for singing events as I am into a capella, yet I hadn’t heard of this wonderful form of traditional Southern 4-part harmony – read more about it here. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to be seated amongst 60 people belting out old-style hymns at the tops of their voices – very moving, even though I am not religious at all. I tend to ignore lyrics and absorb the effects of the sound, especially if it’s “live”.
A show featuring a stage magician was in the afternoon – the poor man was having technical issues with the lighting and he seemed to be having a few problems. Good job I had only been charged US$8 for it (for being a “senior” – my first-ever over-55 discount!).
The band’s morning gig was the Children’s Parade in the Marion Square parkland. The midnight gig was, well, at midnight – the Pajama Parade at the US Customs House. Both were very loud and very colourful, and the audience really enjoyed them.
US Customs House, Charleston – clean, classical architecture
Or My 2010 US Deep South trip (part 2 of 4)
I like to be in America, Okay by me in America.
Everything free in America, For a small fee in America.
West Side Story
Part 1 is here.
MONDAY 24/5/10
The astounding Georgia Aquarium was on the menu today. I’ve already written about it here.
In the evening Alan drove me to visit his ex-wife, Sue, whom I last saw in 1986 in Nashville. She is still producing pottery, and earning a living by cataloguing German and Russian literature in a library. Bob, her husband, is a woodworker and furniture restorer. Their friendly dog, called in the US an ‘Australian Alsatian’, is actually a border collie.
Random facts: petrol (‘gas’) was US$2.69 per gallon (3.785 litres) (or thereabouts), which is US$0.711 per litre – at that time AUS$0.786 per litre. Presently petrol in Lismore is AUS$1.32 per litre [update: in May 2012 petrol in Australia is about $1.55 a litre and the Australian dollars is buying 1.04 US, compared with 0.73 in May 2008; in early June 2012 the Aussie dollar is buying 0.97 US.]. Alan was getting about 54 miles to the US gallon in his hybrid car – he has a right to be smug.
TUESDAY 25/5/10
Alan drove me to a couple of hardware stores to chase down a Leatherman Charge TTi, a multifunction tool which Andrew was keen to get a hold of (at about half the price of those in Australia). We finally tracked one down at REI, a large camping store (think the size of Sydney’s Kathmandu, Paddy Palin and Patagonia rolled into one and multiplied by 10). I joined REI to get a discount, and left the membership with Alan – we don’t have REI at home.
We also went to the Decatur Farmers’ Market, which was a large barn with many local and exotic fruits, vegetables, cheeses, beer and alcohol (including a lot of Aussie wine and beer). I was amazed at the range of imported food and booze. At home it is only in the Australian Capital Territory that it is legal to sell alcohol in supermarkets. There was a sign saying ‘no photographs’ – Alan speculated that this might have been because of illegal immigrants possibly working there.
The evening meal was at Manuel’s Tavern, where we met up with the three people we were going to be sharing a student dormitory with at Charleston. Afterwards we went to band practice. All my “dorm mates” were members of the Seed and Feed Marching Abominables, who had been invited to play at the Spoleto festival in Charleston (the ‘Seed and Feed’ refers to US rural supply stores; see Alan’s photos).
Me and my “roomies” at the Charleston festival
Or My 2010 US Deep South trip (part 1 of 4)
I like to be in America, Okay by me in America.
Everything free in America, For a small fee in America.
West Side Story
SATURDAY 22/5/2010
Andrew saw me off at the Brisbane international airport for the Qantas 11 am fight to LA. I sat next to an Indigenous man and his wife who were on their way to Seattle for a world-wide indigenous conference, which happens every year in different localities (I think it’s the First Nations conference or some such). They lived in an over-50s gated community somewhere around Brisbane. We arrived in LA international airport (LAX) at 6-30 am the same day as we left, thanks to the International Date Line, after a 13-hour flight.
Despite worrying that I wouldn’t have enough time to get through customs to my connecting flight, I had absolutely no problems getting from LA to Atlanta – it took half an hour to get through LAX immigration and pick up my luggage in LA and get through customs. This included queueing for passport check and finger-printing and retinal photography – the joys of living post 9/11.
A curious and heart-stopping moment in LAX airport: I had wound my way around the looong queue to get into the American Airlines terminal (very efficient queue-minders there) and was walking through the nth security check when four big, tall African-American security guys ran through, shouting ‘Boom, boom, boom’. We all stopped – they shouted ‘Stay still, don’t move!’. We all froze. About 30 seconds later, an announcement over the PA said it was a drill. Phew! I asked the nearest person what it was about, and they shrugged and said they had no idea.
I then had a 2-hour wait to catch a connecting flight to Dallas with American Airlines, then another 2-hour wait at Dallas for a connecting flight to Atlanta. It was great to be on the ground and able to people-watch – the US is much more multiracial and multicultural than Australia, at least in the areas I visited. It was curious that on American Airlines you must pay for your food or drink (even a US$1 bottle of beer) with a credit card – no cash accepted. I suppose it eliminates muggings. My luggage appeared on the carousel in Atlanta airport just as Alan and Jane arrived to pick me up at 7 pm-ish Atlanta time (14 hours ‘behind’ Lismore time). It was roughly 29 degrees C and fine, though a bit muggy. Imperial units (miles, Fahrenheit and gallons) are generally used in the US.
We had a sandwich snack at the airport before driving (this was the first time I experienced the large size of American meals, enough for two, but I was starving so polished it off no problems) in Alan’s Prius (I’d heard hybrid cars are very quiet and it’s true) to their home in Decatur (pronounced ‘Dec-A-tur’, not ‘Dec-a-TUR’). It is a quiet neighbourhood with lots of trees and manicured lawns, a few kilometres from Atlanta’s centre. It was a bit disconcerting to be sitting in a car driving on the ‘other’ side of the road, and to have a road rule ‘right on red’, so that you can turn right when facing a red light if it is safe to do so.
Emory University was in the neighbourhood and has a huge campus. Jane worked at the Centers for Disease Control, a huge organisation doing research on health and epidemiology. She’d wanted to show me through, but I would have had to have serious security checks – not practical for just an afternoon’s visit. The facility has lots of very nasty diseases on site, like smallpox and Ebola.
SUNDAY 23/5/2010
I awoke at 3-30 am raring to go – fortunately Alan and Jane have a great library with books of much interest to me, so I started reading The Lost City of Z, about the search for a ‘lost city’ in the Amazon – well-written and gripping. Later I read My Stroke of Insight, by a neuroanatomist who herself had a stroke, describing her attack and recovery – another well-written and fascinating book.
After the sun rose, I moved to the breakfast table where I was able to look at the back deck and bird feeder. Jane and Alan put out seeds to attract birds. I saw a male and female cardinal this morning at the bird feeder – and a squirrel! Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are apparently considered a nuisance, but have novelty value for me. Possums in Australia are often considered the same way in urban areas, where they find cosy places in roofs and rattle around to the annoyance of humans. (Apologies for the less-than-perfect photos. I was shooting them through a window.)
Grey squirrel munching bird seed
A-roving I will go 