First things first, I didn't get to see nearly all the friends I wanted to. If I didn't see you this break, please understand that it is NOT personal! I love and cherish my friends on both sides of the world, but--let's face it--Christmas break is filled with traveling. If it wasn't me, it seemed to be everyone else. The one really redeeming aspect of my social life during my trip home was that I got to visit with 3 friends from GSSM.
Before anyone gets huffy about who didn't get "Becca-time" (not very realistic, I know, but humor me, please), let me just say that Sara "reserved" me for a few days months in advance. I'm flattered, Sara, and amazed that we actually came through with it this time. Special thanks also goes out to Ms. Pomata for letting us stay at her delightfully library-like house, and of course to Nikko and Euan...if for no other reason than that they put up with the rest of us for 3 days.
I say 3 days, but it was more like an evening, a full day, and a morning. I picked up Sara and Euan in Columbia then plugged in the new GPS Mom got for Christmas because I knew only that I was supposed to head towards the general Charleston area. Sidenote: for anyone not too familiar with Charleston, here's Wikipedia's take on things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_South_Carolina. Anyway, the GPS came with a feature where you could download different voices. The one we ended up with was called "Doctor Nightmare." Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for Halloween, considering that the GPS voice kept warning us not to "pick up hitch-hiking werewolves...especially around midnight," and persisted in asking inane questions such as "Have you looked in the backseat lately?" Nevertheless, it seemed to grow on us all to some extent and, by the end of the trip, might have even become well-loved.
We didn't really go into Charleston while we were down there because Nikko's house was in a more rural area. I, for one, have seen multiple times just about all the cool stuff that's down there on previous trips. We hung out at the house some, went to the Charleston Tea Plantation (the only tea plantation in North America) where I bought some delicious samples to bring back to Hong Kong, and we visited this neat place called Angel Oak. Here's Euan, Sara, and Nikko under the oak:
Aside from being huge and painfully tempting to climb, apparently it was around 1500 years old. That would explain all the beams and wires that had been attached for support.
After that, we went on the hunt for fresh seafood. Being near the water, it seemed like the perfect time to buy fresh oysters, shrimp, etc. Sara in particular was very keen on this, seeing as how she is (correct me if I'm wrong, Sara) passionately in love with steamed oysters. Our search turned up mixed results. The first place we found wasn't open, but we had seen a sign on the same road indicating that there were fresh shrimp to be had. Following the sign and the voice of Doctor Nightmare, we ended up parked near the end of a dock where Sara was able to buy 10 lbs of shrimp for $20, styro-foam cooler thrown in for free. Mission partial-success. There were no oysters to be had.
That's all right, though, because we found some for dinner. Thanks to the Internet, we found Bowen's Island Restaurant. We chose it because the menu on their website had all kinds of vegetarian options for Euan, but when we got there we found out the food came one of 2 ways: steamed and piled up on a tray, or deep-fried. Poor Euan had to subsist on hushpuppies and french fries, but at least Sara got her oysters and found another potential zealot in Nikko:
I feel like everyone had a great time down there; I certainly did. It was worth the 4.5 hours drive down and still worth another 4.5 hours back. I dropped Sara and Euan off in Columbia so they could go back to their part of the state, and I finished my trip out solo. By the time I got home, I saw my grandparents' car in the driveway, which surprised me. The last I had heard, they were coming to visit on the 2nd, and it was still the 31st. That's all right, though, because we got more time to visit. Sylvester warmed up to Papa very quickly...or maybe it was the blanket:
And Fudge, well, she stayed around me a good bit, but also visited with both Meme and Papa.
Meme and Papa went home on the 4th, which was my signal to get packing. My flight was scheduled for the evening of the 6th so I needed to get my stuff in order. The house was going to be even more hectic that last night because Mike, a friend of Sarah's, was coming down and spending one night before the 2 of them went to an anime convention in Charlotte. Mike was nice enough to get a picture of the whole family (minus the cats):
Since I was leaving from the Charlotte airport on the same day their convention began, we all just rode together and dropped them off at the hotel. Mom and Dad went with me to the airport and didn't seem quite as weepy as they did when I first headed out in June. It is tough, I know, and I miss everyone back in the States already. To be honest, though, I really did miss Hong Kong. It took me over a day to get back but, now that I'm back, I'm so glad...even though it is FREEZING cold!
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