Charleston Chronicles

Early in June, we took a family vacation to Charleston. The plan was to spend three days there, enjoy the southern hospitality, warm weather and gorge on some yummy food, while feasting on the beautiful architecture and Charleston didn’t disappoint on any of these fronts. Well hold on to your seats, let me walk you through some of the highlights of our trip.

Saturday morning, after Nonu’s soccer class we boarded the direct flight from Boston, and landed in Charleston by 6 p.m. or so. After checking in, we decided to go to the Waterfront Park. It was pretty nice out there, with the wind blowing on your face, beautiful fountains lit up turning the area magical. The best thing at the park or so I thought were the huge family sized swings, I realized later after spending three days in Charleston, that porch swings are common feature in Charleston houses, I loved them so much that I am planning to get one for my house to. How does it matter that, we don’t live in the south, we can still like them and want one for us? Ok, enough digression.

We waited half an hour or so, hoping some one would get up and we could sway on the huge swings but no such luck. Other than that, we enjoyed the park, Charleston harbor is beautiful, after a long day of traveling, this was a perfect place to relax and take in the sites of ships and sailboats sailing. Walking around for an hour or so, we were starving and decided to go to a nearby pizza place where we gorged on pizzas, bread sticks and even some zucchini fries. The zucchini fries were a last-minute order and it didn’t turn out as delicious as I expected it to be, well you win some and lose some .

The city has seen so much history that one can spend days exploring the city, however we did not have days, so for the second day, I had purchased tickets for horse carriage ride through the historic downtown of Charleston.  Downtown is divided into three zones and the route your horse carriage takes is decided by the city. Every carriage has to stop at a booth and a guy there gives a token to show the route they will take. So, it might so happen that every time you take a carriage ride you could chance upon different houses. Our guide was witty and very knowledge able of the history, the horse was called ‘Facebook’ and was a nine-year old rescue. Nonu was very excited to go on a horse carriage ride and at the end even got a chance to pet the horse. That made his day.

As far as mine, the beautiful architecture with their outstanding gardens and porches and almost all of them sporting porch swings made me swoon. Every other house, to call some of these as “house” would be injustice, – they were mansions, with ornate doors and balustrades and windows with arches that asks you to notice them. I must have clicked so many pictures and kept thinking how beautiful the interior rooms will be and so wished that I could feast my eyes on them. Another thing that was common was almost all the houses had topmost floor smaller in length to the remaining sections and with either tiny or no windows, I initially thought it was the attic but the guide told me that many times the house slaves lived there, they worked for you day and night, you let them live in your mansions, but you don’t even give them room to stand straight in their sleeping quarters. Just makes one think what kind of miserable life they led.

Like all tourists, we then visited the Old City Market, consisting of 4 blocks of street shops, vendors selling everything from baskets to souvenirs to paintings to food items. Charleston is known for the handmade sweetgrass baskets. It’s a long process and you get to see the work they put into it, as you stroll around the market, very interesting to see them being weaved, we bought a small one as a souvenir. Another unique thing that we ate was the dried okra chips. I had never had that before, it was very different, crispy, crunchy like chip and very addictive. Since, I love window-shopping, even though some of the items were pricey it was fun to walk around, peer at the unique items, and just breathe in the moment.

Afternoon it was pouring cats and dogs so, we spent close to an hour standing at someone’s porch that opened to the sidewalk, waiting for the rain to pass, fortunately the house was empty and no one minded us standing there like stray cats. As the rain didn’t subside, we decided to go to USS Yorktown CV 10 – a World War II US aircraft carrier. My husband loves to look at planes and this had tons of them, besides the forecast called for rain for another hour or so, it seemed like a good way to avoid the rain. However by the time we reached the last tickets for the day were already sold, and we couldn’t go In. I felt bad that we couldn’t go inside, however we were lucky that by then the rain had stopped and we walked around Patriots Park where they had model of Vietnam Air Base and few other army / naval vehicles that we could look at. This park also served as a backdrop to Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge – which is a cable-stayed suspension bridge over the Cooper River, looked eerily similar to the Zakim bridge in Boston, so much so that my 4-year-old also pointed that out. We drove over this bridge on the way to Patriots Park but this was a perfect photo opportunity.

By then, it was time to eat and we found this unique place called Fuel, this was gas station which they converted into a restaurant, and they had some unique and delicious items that we gorged on. From fried plantains, to crispy corn fritters to the black bean burger, everything was a hit. And the ambience was pretty cool too. All in all a great place to munch and relax and enjoy some good vegetarian food.

As it was still sunny outside, we decided to end the day by walking up the historic Battery Park, it’s a great place and I am glad that we decided to visit, the antebellum mansions lining up the harbor, was a treat to the eyes. What a joy to wake up every day to the beautiful sight of harbor !! The light breeze from the harbor, the beautiful promenade was a great ending to our day.

This post is already long so , come back again for another installment on Charleston.

Survival

The one event in history that affects me the most is Holocaust. I don’t remember the exact age when I learned about this horrific incident for the first. I think it was in school, in one of the history lessons, when I was in my 8th or 9th standard. There was a chapter on World War II and I had a class mate who would start muttering obscenities the instance the teacher would start talking about Hitler. I later realized he was a Jew and I can’t begin to imagine what he must be going through, reading about it, and feeling helpless about the injustice meted out to his people.

I started reading about Holocaust when I had free time at work in 2007. Not a light read, but I wanted to know all about it. From the pain, the misery, the helplessness, the cruelty everything troubled me. I would read about Dr Death (Albert Heim), Josef Mengele and his atrocities. I would read about the death march, the concentration camps, the gas chambers, and then cry. I knew what I was reading had occurred years ago, and I couldn’t do anything about it, but then I would imagine their plight, and cry again.

When we went to Washington DC, we visited the Holocaust museum. Each picture tells a story of the brutality endured by the people. There is one which shows the amount of hair collected in one of the concentration camps, and one which had the thousands and hundreds of footwear lying, each a grim reminder of the person killed. Somehow those pictures stuck in my mind, I can still see them when I close my eyes and think about it.

I wanted to watch Schindler’s list but I could never build the courage. Finally I read the book, it hit me hard. There are times when I keep imagining about the plight of the Jews in Germany. I just can’t understand how any person can brainwash entire community to kill people mercilessly. What about conscience? How could they go to sleep at night, wouldn’t they have heard the cries of people they so ruthlessly killed?

Why am I writing about this today is I kind of keep thinking about holocaust often. It’s like my imagination working overtime. There are some days the images of torture and deprivation that I have read till now, keep repeating in my head like a tape on continuous play. When I waste food or throw them away, I think about the starvation and deprivation Jews suffered, and how they used to fight for some watery soup. I know there are people even now suffering from hunger in the world, but this is the first thought that comes to my mind. It’s not that I haven’t read about Darfur or Somalia but the genocide of Jews is something that I keep remembering all the time.

So, I just thought of asking is it me alone or do you guys sometimes get this feeling too? Being overwhelmed by something happened long ago, something you had no control on and feeling helpless about it. Do you have any event in history that affects you the most??