The next morning I woke up relatively early (I usually woke up around 8-9 AM on this trip) and was ready to begin my day walking around downtown Charleston. I lifted my head from my pillow, and the next thing I saw were a girl’s panties and legs climbing down the railing of the bed. I was a little paranoid about how I managed to sleep in the wrong room the night before, but quickly realized that I was staying in a coed room, and I’d have to bear the burden of waking up to girls in pajamas and underwear as long as I was staying at this hostel…life could’ve been worse. I quickly threw on some shorts in light of this new situation, and started talking with the girl who had just made her way down my bed. She was from Germany and grew up in France and I was immediately intrigued by her because of her roots in Europe. The next thing I knew another girl entered the room dressed similarly to the first and I wasn’t sure if I shouldve been really glad or confused about the situation of being in a room in this situation. I took things in stride, introduced myself and made my way downstairs for breakfast. I learned that the other girl was from the Netherlands, not Amsterdam, and somehow I managed to make two quick friends in less than five minutes time.
Once the three of us got downstairs, the girls met up with another girl from England who already seemed to have a connection with the two girls from my room, so I introduced myself to her as well. The three of us got to talking and I mentioned that I wanted to see a plantation that day, so I called Middleton Plantation, figured out their opening hours and admission price, and passed the information along to the girls. The girl from Germany was the only one who had any interest in going with me, so we jumped into my car, I plugged the address into my navigation system, and off we went towards Middleton Plantation.
The two of us seemed to feel reasonably comfortable with each other and were able to talk for the majority of the drive, until we both decided we had somehow gotten lost even with the GPS, and stopped at a gas station for directions. I called the Plantation and got directions from a lady who sounded as if she had been around long enough to experience slavery in the South, and off we were again. It took about an hour or so with the delays and getting lost before we made it to the plantation, so both of us were somewhat eager to start walking around. For the next four or five hours the two of us walked around this humongous plantation that included some of the most beautiful scenery I’d ever seen at a private residence. The piece of property was huge, and I decided in my mind that the only way someone could afford to own a piece of property that large and keep it well-maintained was if they owned slaves. This seemed to make sense to me after I saw the list of the 200 plus slaves this particular plantation had during its life, and I felt really awkward after realizing how many slaves a plantation could own.
My friend and I walked through each and every part of the plantation, as I shot of pictures left and right, as my batter died, and had some pictures taken of me doing stupid things with props that were left around the plantation. There were live animals, beautiful pastures, lakes, rivers, huge houses, everything and anything you’d imagine a plantation having, and it ended up being a really wonderful experience. I talked a lot about girls with this new friend of mine and how they still confused me, and for the most part our conversations were somewhat humorous. We decided to walk through some bamboo at one point and after entering 40 feet or so into the bamboo forest, the exit seemed a lot more daunting and dangerous than our entrance. Fortunately both of us made it through in one piece and practically unscathed. My biggest concern were the spiders that seemed to miraculously appear on every piece of bamboo.
The plantation was gorgeous and the entire day provided a breather to me after seeing city after city for awhile. The weather was ridiculously hot, and after walking around the property for a few hours we made our way back to the hostel. That night a group of us planned to head out to see the Charleston night life, but before we took off I rested with the aid of the internet.
I put something decent on and headed to downtown hoping to find something to do. We found a club, but it looked dead so we kept walking. We walked and walked and didn’t find anything so we headed back to the original club where the life seemed to have increased hundred fold since we were last there, so we entered the club and made our way to the bar. There was a $10 cover, but this included an open bar, so I got around 6 whiskey and cokes that night, and spent a lot of the time talking to this Canadian guy about traveling and his sports news business he was running that assisted people in fantasy sports. Apparently he was successful enough to go on this vacation and stay in hostels. I lost contact with this guy and made my way back to the hostel after a little and got some sleep.
