Jaana and Jan @ Charleston, SC

On St Patricks day, we had met some random people. One of which invited us to Lunch on sunday. We went to a burger place on Sullivan’s Island, Poe’s tavern (http://www.poestavern.com/). This cute Burger joint was decorated with everything Edgar Allan Poe related, which made some excellent burgers and served some nice beers! Afterwards we went back to downtown Charleston to Star’s Rooftop Bar, where we went with Jaana’s mom on her first night in Charleston. We enjoyed some nice cocktails in the sun while learning to know someone new.

On the 12th and 13th of April, MUSC celebrated their 10th annual international day. With plenty of food and entertainment from all over the world. If only we had known we would have made some Belgian specialties!

Last week it was International Free Cone day at Ben&Jerry’s, which of course we had to take part in! Totally worth waiting for (20 minutes or so). Americans get proper sized cones!

Saturday we tried a new burger joint HoM on King Street, while verry tasty it is number 4 on our list so far. Our burgers standards are now very high.

Light beer… always the light beer

Later in the evening we found a cute little pub in an alley behind King Street. With a life band, not always best quality music but fun either way!

Also this week we started Aikido classes, which so far has been fun but confusing, more on that next week.

Thursday:

The past weekend Jaana’s mom was here to finish up her own USA adventure. Obviously the first day she was here she got to enjoy the wonderful Charleston showers. But in the evening the weather had all cleared up and we had booked some seats at a local theater: Dock street theater. To see the Miracle Worker, the story about Helen Keller. For those of you who have no idea who this is, watch season 4 episode 13 of South Park :p

Friday:

The next day was going to be rather uneventful, just going the Walmart and maybe having dinner afterwards, but that was not taking into account the difficulty of renting a car without a visa card.

Jaana got a call at about 12h30 from mommy dearest letting us know that she could not use her Visa card to pay for the deposit of the car and she needed one of us to come with a visa card. Jan quickly found his “boss” and asked whether it was ok for him to leave early, which was luckily no problem. So he left at about 14h waiting for a bus for about an hour (he was not late the busses just run on their own times here).

Jaana did not have time to stop early, and kept working until 17h. At 16h however she got a text from Jan asking her if she could also come to the airport to pick up the car, since they needed a valid drivers lisence on the same name as the visa card. Jan has removed his drivers lisence from his wallet, thinking he wouldn’t need it anymore. 2 hours later, Jaana arrived at the airport visa and drivers lisence in hand… It took a total of 6 hours, 3 people, 3 visa cards and 2 drivers lisences to get that car.

Next on the list: walmart!

After which we got hungry and decided on:

 nomnomnom

Saturday:

Time to test out the beach.

Going to Folly beach! Which was hindered in the morning due to a 10k blocking most of downtown

But after the run and 1 hour in the car (30 minutes in traffic) we arrive at Folly Beach.

And now pictures of the beach

To finish a nice and sunny day, we had dinner in ” the noisy oyster ” http://www.noisyoysterseafood.com/

Which was really good, it just takes getting used to the “2 sides” that you are allowed to order. For instance: I’m already eating pasta, which comes with garlic bread. I can choose 2 sides from the following list: Grits, Red rice, Butter Parsley New Potatoes, Coleslaw, Old-fashioned collard greens, fresh vegetables of the day, French fries… Difficult choice!

Sunday:

Mom’s last day, so we decided to go kayakking!

As a last meal, we had lunch next to the water in the wind.

So in the past month we have experienced the weather in Charleston, SC… Sunny and warm!

But what we have also learned is that, spring takes like a week here: 1 week of “cold” weather, and even 1 night of freezing (low 30’s a.k.a -3°C), suddenly you see everyone with winter hats and scarves, while we were finally experiencing some weather we were used to. For one week everyone was complaining about the cold and nothing else, like it was the worst thing ever! For us this meant putting on a sweater.

And then out of nowhere from one day to the next, high 70’s tot 80’s (25-30°C). Spring was over and summer had begun. This also means that the summer showers are about to begin.

This means that in the morning everything is fine and dandy, very hot and sunny. But between 14h and 18h all hell breaks loose. We Belgians are used to a little rain, but this is apocalyptic amounts of water coming down, which is why it is not surprising to me at all that parts of the city floods from time to time. But no worries after 18h (meaning after working hours) the sky will have cleared and the sun will be back!

Yesterday we had the fun of experiencing our first thunderstorm. We had come home at the exact right moment, right before all hell broke loose!

And today it’s “cloudy”

On Friday, 17th of March, we went out for the first time in downtown Charleston to grab some beers to celebrate St. Patricks days. We stopped at burger place to get our first all-American burger first. Americans really make decent burgers and – always nice to find out – know how to make good fries! Although we did get a few weird looks when, after finding out that there was only ketchup at the self service, we went back to the counter and asked for some mayo. The guy behind the counter was tactful enough to just oblige, but the woman who filled a few cups with mayo for us could now hide the surprise on her face. Hey, we’re the Belgians, we invented fries so we’ll tell you how to properly eat them 

Fun fact: we ordered a regular drink with our burgers instead of the large one. But it’s a take-it-yourself system and you get free refills. So… what? People pay just to be able to delay standing up and walking 2m?

Onwards towards the bars. We hit a sports bar first (the Ale house). The amount of TV’s there is insane!

I went for the beer with one of the coolest names I’ve ever seen on a beer bottle: Founders Dirty bastard (the only 8% beer around) while Jaana kept the St Paddy’s spirit high with green beer.

We got a taste of the general super-friendlyness of Americans when a drunk guy called George randomly started talking to us and we ended up talking to him and his awesome friends Bob and Eric for an hour. We then ordered a second drink and after 5 minutes someone heard us talking and wnated to know where we were from and we talked to them for about an hour. It was very easy to make friends and meet new people. Very nice experience.

We then went out with our Roommate Christian and his friends, to a bar called ‘Midtown’.

Jazz band in the last pub of the night

So, by now a few weeks have past and while here and there some routine is starting to develop itself – hating your alarm in the morning, dragging yourself out of bed and be a productive member of society for the next 9 or so hours – the feeling of ‘new’ has definitely not faded yet and subtle or not so subtle differences and observations are definitely a form of entertainment.

One not so subtle difference that everyone knows about but still amazes you when you first expericience it, is that everything in the US is bigger. EVERYTHING. Both people and stuff. While the number of ‘Blob-like’ people really isn’t that enormous as some people would think (you do see some rolling around the streets every now and then though), they do seem to happily come out to drive around Walmart in these trollys while shopping. I know I shouldn’t laugh about this but… still weird… You would think the little amount of exercise they could get from walking around in a store would be good for them.

When looking for something to wear on the upcoming St Patricks day (Jaana’s favourite holiday – such a girl), we discovered that Walmart has awesome funny t shirts. It quickly became apparent that we should not adhere to our normal sizes. So I guess I’m now a ‘small’ (which was nowhere to be found) while Jaana… well Jaana had to shop in the kids section. But she clearly didn’t mind and got some very funny stuff from the boys section after a short burst of outrage since the boys section was filled with funny/geeky/comic-y stuff while the girls section only offered pink and glitter. Stereotypes are definitely very much alive here.

But it doesn’t stop at people and clothes. Food itself is often one or two sizes larger here. An American steak is easily twice the size of the ones at home (I still don’t understand how we each managed to finish one).

Same for chicken, which by the way you can buy in packs of 10 kg. Because off course you can… Eggplants are humongous and I think onions are almost large enough to use as a football. Also, you haven’t seen a bucket of ice cream until you’ve seen an Américan bucket of ice cream. Sheds a new light on heartbroken women in movies and sitcoms: maybe if they’d eat less ice cream, they wouldn’t be dumped? Zucchini’s are a weird exception however: they’re tiny. The prices of fresh vegetables however are not. Clearly, trying to eat healthy is a costly choice here.

However, we took all of this as a warning.

All of this combined with, like jaana said before, the overwhelming amount of choice we get in the MUSC cafeteria (everything is there -nacho’s, burgers, sushi, pizza, subway- and even healthy options) made us try to adopt the habit of working out a bit more than before to counter the not so healthy food. The gym at home really helps.

Nacho appetizer platter: before and after

Ok… twinkies, guess we gotta try it. While the sponge cake is fine, the creamy filling is something between pudding and gum, too weird. Not a fan. Please give me a jelly donut!

Since it is very hard to let the youngest go and any excuse is a good one to visit the states, my mommy came in last night to visit us (and her friends).

So it is only logical that we show her the campus and join her in exploring the city that we have now been living in for 5 days.

After seeing the campus we decide to walk south through the richer neighborhoods, towards the water to White Point Garden.

Houses on Murray Blvd

East Battery

East Bay street

Water front swings

Walk through the Center Market exploring the local ‘prullaria/knick knacks’

Time for a beer in the Upper Deck Tavern (King Street 353)

   

Sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon: I’m white trash and I’m in trouble ( for those who don’t understand: watch South Park)

Lastly Dinner at Stars Restaurant – Rooftop and Grill (King Street 495)

Wake up at 7h30, maybe a little bit of jetlag, or finally falling into a grown up rythm who can tell? Jetlag, not growing up at all.

Since we are awake this early might as well make the most of it. Let’s begrudgingly try the gym, no access yet. Apparently, the keys don’t always work the way you want them to. Fun.

Guess it’s time to hit the time then. We take the 930 NoMo shuttle, a bus which is free for all NoMo residents takes us straight to downtown Charleston (College of Charleston and MUSC), drives every 30 minutes. Alright that’s already something interesting.

We arrive at the College of Charleston (CoC) and decide to get off and walk the rest of the way just to start to get the feel of the city and find our way around. It seems to be a pretty cute southern city. Cute houses, american flags, huge cars, all of it.

Used to walking around in Antwerp, we kind of underestimate the size of an American city. But since the food here is so “healthy” we don’t mind walking around. After having found one of the MUSC buildings on Calhoun str we decide we know enough about the campus (big mistake) and walk back to the main street (King str) and find some food. Healthy food (SUBWAAAAY!). We will find some healthier food later on.

I have a meeting at 11 a.m to start up my registration here. But it is almost impossible to 1) find the correct building (thank you waze for showing the way), 2) the correct entrance, 3) the correct floor. Luckily everyone is very friendly and helps us along.

Next stop a vegetable store. Fresh fruits and vegetables are an elusive thing here. Not alot of people feel the need for eating these things. We buy 4 bananes, 3 tomatoes, 2 zucchinis, a giant eggplant, and 4 apples, that should last us through the week: 18$… IT HAS TO LAST US THROUGH THE WEEK!

Health check time: a TB test, don’t know where I would’ve picked that up but…

Time to meet the boss and the team and take a little walk on the campus. It’s so pretty here! Dr. Louis Luttrell, or Lou, seems like a very nice and driven person. I expect to be able to learn alot from him and I’m very excited to start. The rest of the team are equally welcoming, only our names are a difficulty. Djaana en Djan guess that’s who we are now.

Maybe look for some food? There is a Wallgreens at King street let’s see what they have. First thing: WINE! Yummy. No showercurtains, no TP… Guess we’ll have to find walmart. But first a cookie.

Luckily there is an express line taking only 14 minutes. We spend an hour looking around for some food that we recognize as edible plus cookies and cheetos, duh!

Apparently busses never run on time though, either they’re early or late, we don’t know which. So getting home was tricky, but we made it! And thanks to some grapes we didn’t starve.

Now time for a Cheeto snack

Jaana