Day 1 - Monday, February 28th, 2000

I took one of my best friends, Yener, with me to a condo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for Spring Break. We both badly needed to get away from Michigan's cold weather and spend some time in the sun. We rented a car from Budget - a red Ford Contour. It was a pretty decent car and made the trip very enjoyable. Today, we arrived at the condo-- a comfortable place with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a balcony, and a decent kitchen.

After unpacking, the two of us decided that we had to go to the beach. So we hopped in the car and went to Pawley's Island Beach, located about 1.5 miles away from the condo. It was a nice little beach that was uncrowded and provided a nice view of the ocean. The sand was nice and soft and the water, while cold, felt pretty good washing over our feet. There is a constant ocean breeze here that felt great as we wandered down the beach in the sunlight.

We took a drive up through Myrtle Beach and as we were pulling off of the highway, we discovered the "Adult Sector". It wasn't hard to miss as there were video stores, adult arcades, and adult clubs lining the street. After a few blocks, though, we got out of that section of town and into where more of the mainstream entertainment could be found. Myrtle Beach is a nice place that offers uncrowded beaches, carnival rides, miniature golf, bowling, bars, clubs, tons of restaurants, and other kinds of entertainment.

At this point in his life, Yener had not tried miniature golfing. It was my duty (and pleasure) to take him to one of the courses in Myrtle Beach. No trip to South Carolina can be called complete without playing some form of golf - even if it is on the small scale. We played 18 holes and I beat him by two points. He's a natural! We had a good time and enjoyed the fact that we were there in the middle of the afternoon while many others had to sit in their offices and work. Sometimes, being a student is such fun! :-)

When we got back to the condo, I suggested that we try rollerblading for a bit. Yener admitted to me that he really didn't know how to do it very well, so we attempted rollerblading in the condo's empty parking lot. For not having much experience, he did quite well. We determined that the reason he hadn't done more blading was because his blades are a little too small for him. After about an hour of this, we took out blades off and drove around the golf course/condo area to familiarize ourselves with the facility. It's a nice place and we found a pool/jacuzzi that we vowed to try sometime during our stay. Approaching dinner, we decided to go back to the condo and get cleaned up.

Of course, I didn't want to suffer from Internet withdrawal, so I brought my laptop with me and I tried to hook up the computer via dial-up networking to my Earthlink account. Unfortunately, after 50 minutes of waiting on my cell phone, I still didn't have a connection, so I hung up and we went to dinner.

Famished, we took off for dinner at Bovine's restaurant in Murrell's Inlet. It's a really great restaurant that offers extremely good food (steak, fish, chicken, and pizzas cooked in a wood-fired oven!) in a friendly and relaxed environment. I highly suggest trying out this restaurant if you are ever in the area. We stuffed ourselves and then went home to let it settle. What a day!

Day 2 - Tuesday, February 29th, 2000

Today, we decided to take a day trip to Charleston, SC. This is where the American Civil War started and the city is filled with historic houses and artifacts from that time. The two of us thought it would make an interesting destination since it is only about an hour away by car and Yener had never really experience the American South.

I have one thing to tell you about the actual trip down there. Be sure you have someone brave driving you as there are a few bridges you have to traverse before you reach the city. These bridges are very tall, fairly steep (to allow ships to pass under them), and the lanes are very narrow. I've been driving since I was 15 and I was really nervous driving over these bridges. Fortunately, we made it without a problem and it only took about a minute or so for my hands to stop trembling once we got into Charleston. :-)

Upon arriving in the city, we decided to stop by the Visitor's Center there. Parking was free for the first 30 minutes, so we figured it would be a good use of our time. This visitor's center was very impressive! There was information about the history of the city, attractions, activities, and there was even this cool aquarium that was filled with jellyfish. (Click on the aquarium to look inside!)

In the visitor's center, we were approached by a staff member who offered to help us figure out what we should do with our day. A truly charming elderly man, he talked to us for about 15 minutes about what the city had to offer. He lived in Charleston all his life and knew the city. He clued us in on the attractions, where we could find free parking, and then chatted with us about the city's history. He told us "I'm pretty sure I'll be going to hell after I die, 'cause I've been living in God's country my entire life." I can't say I disagree with him as Charleston is quite a lovely city. This was yet another example of the American Southern Hospitality we encountered during our trip; there was much more to come!

After leaving the visitor's center, we drove down to the sea wall in Charleston, a place called The Battery (red circle on the map) where there was free parking. Charleston is a small city, about a mile and a half at it's widest, so we figured we would park and just wander around the city enjoying the sites.

In The Battery area, there were cannons and cannon balls lining the area. It was for decoration, of course, but it was interesting to see the different kinds of cannons used for defense here. The Battery is actually a nice little park right by the sea wall that had this really beautiful Gazebo in the middle of it for public functions like musical performances and presentations. Yener and I climbed up the stairs onto the sea wall and wandered on there for a little while. This is the point where two rivers in South Carolina empty into the Atlantic ocean (see the map above).

Being a library nerd, I dragged Yener to Charleston's Public Library. It's a very nice place! Fairly large holdings, computers available, a great genealogy departments, lots of study space, and they even let the two of us use their computers to surf the web! (A Yankee and an International student! Go figure...we did, however, have to sign an agreement not to surf for "offensive" material) There were even bean bags scattered around for you to use in the stacks!

	We walked all the way back to the visitor's center and went over to the Charleston Museum. In front of the building, they have this replica (I assume) of the confederate submarine. Take a look at this thing! I took pictures of the other sides too, so keep scrolling down. (This picture is courtesy of Yener. See his shadow?) This was about 5:30pm, so we missed the museum. It closed at 5pm.
	The front of the sub. There is some sort of battering ram thing on the front of it and you can see that this vessel is not very wide. Barely wide enough for people to fit into it. This thing has tiny ports at the top for getting in, so you definitely couldn't put very big people into it.
	From this perspective, you can see that there is a plexiglass panel for viewing the interior. I couldn't get a picture of that part of the ship, but it was SMALL! The ship was propelled by and hand-crank inside. It looks like it was operated by 3 people, but my view a bit obscured. There was a little room in the front for someone to look out and see where the ship was going, but that's it! Tiny, tiny boat!
	Here's the back side of the vessel. That propeller was what pushed this thing through the water. Can you imagine how hot it would get in there?!?

About now, we were getting a bit hungry. We started to walk back to The Battery to look for food. We had seen restaurants along the way as we walked towards the museum, so it was only a matter of picking one. We decided on this great little diner called Jestine's Kitchen. The dining room was uncrowded and we managed to get a window seat. The napkins were made of hunter green terry cloth and we were surrounded by kick-knacks like salt and pepper shakers, cookie jars, old newspaper clippings, and a bunch of other things.

Our waitress was this wonderfully pleasant woman with a nice smile and authentic South Carolina accent. She brought us a bowl of home made pickles (the BEST I've had!) and took our order, helping us decide which of the Southern-style dishes we wanted. We started off with corn fritters and I had grilled boneless chicken-breast with a lemon-pepper cream sauce, creamed corn (real creamed corn, not the stuff from a can!), and black-eyed peas. Yener ordered fried chicken with red rice and mashed potatoes. Both of our dinners were fantastic! We drank what is called "Jestine's Table Wine" with our dinners - it's sweetened iced tea that was the best I've had in a LONG time. Our meal was completed with my having a slice of pecan pie and Yener got a blueberry cobbler. Again, these were fantastic! I'm sorry Mom, but their pecan pie beats yours! (You'll have to try it for yourself!)

During dinner, we witnessed an accident right outside our window. These two children (a boy and a girl about 10 years old or so) were biking along and they took the corner to go down the street that ran parallel to our window. The girl fell off her bike in the middle of the road and fell flat on her face! It looked like she may have hurt her left forearm too, but I'm not sure. Three people who were walking down that street at the time rushed to the girl's aid. Fortunately, there wasn't any traffic on this street. They gently helped her up and took her and her bike to the side of the street. She was crying and holding her left arm. An older gentleman called 911 on his cell phone while the others helped calm the children down. After calling for an ambulance, he called the parents of these children and let them use his phone to tell them what happened. Within minutes, an ambulance and three police cars showed up and tended to the girl. As we left, we could see that the girl was being taken care of by the EMT's and the older man with the phone stayed with her to make sure she was ok. How's THAT for American Southern Hospitality?

On our way back to our car at the Battery, we wandered down the street looking the amazing chandeliers that were hanging in the houses. Absolutely beautiful. Charleston is remarkable both during the day and during the night. Well...we got so caught up in looking at the scenery, neither of us noticed this gigantic white standard poodle sitting right by the gate of a house. I noticed it first, and it startled me a bit. Then I pointed it out to Yener as we passed in front of it saying, "Look! A dog!" He almost jumped out of his skin! People need to keep those big white fluffy scary dogs away from their fences! :-) (I'm sorry Yener, but it was so funny I just had to share!)

Day 3 - Wednesday, March 1st, 2000

This morning, after breakfast, I went to stand out on the balcony of the condo when I spotted this crocodile in the pond! It's not too big (yet), but it just makes me wonder about the sanity of those golfers who go down by the sandy shore of this pond to retrieve their golf balls. We saw this reptile again on Thursday. It seems to like to hang around this pond. I'll have to keep this in mind when I finally try this golf course. I managed to contact Earthlink again to see if I could bet my connection problem resolved. This time I made progress and got my issue taken care of in 20 minutes. I was eager to try out the computer, but was told that it would take a few hours for the change to take effect, so I distracted myself with a road trip with Yener.

I'm sorry, Yener, but his picture was so cool, I just had to post it! We haven't been bowling in a LONG time, so we stopped by this place to play a couple of games. Yes...my shoes were just as awful, but I prevented photographic evidence from being taken. :-) Yener's first try was a STRIKE! Talk about beginner's luck! I managed to win the first game with an outstanding double-digit score. We both improved our performance in the second game and Yener managed to finish the game with a double strike! I was sooooooo jealous! He beat me this game. (Yener, if you remember the scores, please send them to me.) After this, we decided to try miniature golfing again.

We stopped at this course called Jurassic Park and played 18 holes. Here you see Yener taking his first swing at the fourth hole on the course. He was really into this game and seemed to have a much better time since this course was more about geometry than avoiding obstacles. It was another great day for golfing! We took the course that required more climbing, so we managed to get up on top of the hill for the place where my ball decided that it wanted to become one with nature. It rolled off of the course and bounced down the mountain, ending up in the unholy-blue water that flowed through the course.

Yener let me share his ball for the rest of the course and we finished with some very good scores! He beat me this time and was humble enough not to gloat about it. (Well, not too much!) The picture to the left is of this animatronic dinosaur that came to life as we were standing on this hole. Kind of cheesy, but it was interesting. We had a ton of fun and had worked up an appetite to go home and cook dinner. It was a wonderfully relaxing and fun day.

Before making dinner, we decided to take a dip in the jacuzzi for the condo complex. It was wonderfully hot and relaxing. However, after about 10 minutes, i was ready to cool down. I figured a dip in the pool wouldn't hurt, so I got in. It was COLD! Even after I got used to the temperature, it was still too cold for my tastes. It got to the point where I couldn't feel my limbs, so I got out and went back to the jacuzzi to thaw out before going home to make dinner.

After dinner, I made us some iced drinks to enjoy as we watched TV. We bought a mix for mud slides and had that. We had to use our food processor to shave the ice, as there was no blender. It turned out O.K. A little cold, but it was good. After I had some alcohol in my system, I decided to give the computer another try. Sure enough, it worked! I was thrilled and I checked my e-mail at school to clear out the 50 messages that piled up since Monday. Ugh! I need to get off some list servers!

Day 4 - Thursday, March 2nd, 2000

Our last day here. We started the day with a great flap jack breakfast (thanks, Yener!) and doing laundry. We also decided to pay another visit to the jacuzzi. This time, I remembered that the pool was off limits. Instead, we did some sun worshiping and I may have even picked up a slight tan. It felt good to feel the sun after dealing with winter's cold.

We got back to the condo and continued our cleaning. When we left, the place was spotless and we were off to get lunch/dinner before heading back to Michigan. We stopped by Crabby Mike's - a buffet place that had 120 items on their all-you-can-eat buffet. We stuffed ourselves! They had crab legs (yep...all you want!), fish, swordfish, scallops, crab cakes, beef tips, chicken, you name it. It was a great meal and it kept me from getting hungry for the rest of the day. Our flight was right on time and very uncrowded. Turns out there weren't any women on the flight besides the flight attendants! A whole plane filled with golfers and vacationers. It was funny; one of the attendants asked "Where are all the women?!?" Our flight was uneventful and we even got to chat with one of the attendants who was from Chelsea, MI. We finally got into Detroit about 9:45 and were headed home - relaxed, refreshed, and ready for the rest of the term!