Savannah smells weird. There, I said it. Some streets I swear to all that is important I can actually smell the chamber pots, horse manure, food scraps, dirt and grime and god only knows what else, on the street today, as though it was 1733, when Savannah was first established.
The British had a problem - their economy was much like the USA's today; in the toilet. And they had all these citizens who suddenly couldn't afford to live, and so they were being locked up in poor people's prisons, as they couldn't repay their debts or their taxes. But this system was obviously not doing the British government or economy any good really, all it was doing was costing them more money keeping these otherwise helpful people in prison. The British also had another problem - the Spanish. While the twelve colonies of Britain were doing swimmingly across Northern America, the Spanish were doing rather well for themselves in the Southern regions of Northern America (namely, Florida). Not to mention the French were doing exceedingly well in Louisiana. The threat was always there. So one bright spark, British General James Edward Oglethorpe, caught King George II's ear, and suggested that they could, perhaps, send these men off to create a thirteenth colony, not as free men, but in debt to the Crown for a period of five to ten years, and perhaps they should be landed on the marshy ground between the prosperous Charles Town, and the Spanish owned Florida. There were differences between this colony and the others though:
1. They were not free men;
2. No Catholics, Jews, Lawyers or Rum allowed. Why Catholics? Because the Spanish were the Pope's people, and King George II was paranoid that a Catholic may spy for the other side. Why Jews? Well probably because they've been persecuted for a few thousand years thus far, why stop now. I'm sure I was told, I just can't remember!
3. NO SLAVERY. These men were not free men! Why would they be allowed slaves! They had to work off their debts to the Crown, and then they would be free men.
Savannah did rather well for itself, and provided an excellent buffer between the Spanish & French settlements, and the Carolinas. But not only did Savannah provide this protection; it also turned into a very prosperous city indeed.
Savannah is allegedly America's Most Haunted City. The reasons as to why it is so damn haunted became apparent to me today, when on my tour, the tour guide (Savannah Dan, I recommend) began telling the stories of where the old cemeteries used to be.. and how the rapidly expanding city decided to just BUILD OVER THEM. In addition to just blatantly building over graves, they also decided to build a monument to one of the cities (white) heroes over the TOP OF AN INDIAN KING'S BURIAL SITE. Literally, built on an Indian burial ground. EESH. Oh but it doesn't stop there! When the Confederate soldiers were in town during the Civil War, the offices got to sleep comfortably inside the houses in the city, but the mere soldiers had to camp out in a large flat grassy area - you guessed it - a cemetery. Not only did they break off headstones and move them out of the way to create more flat space to erect their makeshift tents, but some of them out of boredom changed the engravings on other tombstones, and some, to my utter disbelief and disgust, broke into the raised mausoleums and did one of two things; either busted open the coffins and used the wood to make a fire for warmth, OR kicked out the skeletons and then climbed in to sleep in the coffin to get out of the cold.
Little wonder really, why there's just so many restless dead in this city.
Some truly scary shit is going on here, and after the two hour ghost tour of the city last night (no, I saw no ghosts, and was more distracted by the stupid drunk bachelorette party that came with us and one especially stupid loud-mouthed drunk attention seeking biatch in their party), I don't particularly want to go poking around at certain houses. Some of the mansions here haven't been lived in this century because they just can't handle the hag attacks. Bites, scratches, welts, wounds, bruises.. all happening by some heavy-pressure shadow form that attacks at night and can be seen by your partner lying in bed next to you watching you suddenly come up with scratch marks. According to local voodoun, Calhoun Square is a layway for hag energies to cross into our world and apparently hags aren't item or location bound like most spirits - they can go anywhere, follow you anywhere. Tobias - my tour guide who has been doing this tour for years - said he no longer takes the group over onto the other side of the street to stand in front of one of the worst haunted houses, because he was getting too many emails back from people saying they were experiencing hauntings. So to be safe, we stood across the road from one of the most haunted houses in America, and took photos trying to see if we could capture anything. I don't know exactly what happened, but I took a series of photos, and in one of them the house is completely obscured by what appears to be a white-grey fog right over the camera lens. Tobias showed us a photo that had been taken by three separate people on one of his tours - and in it, you can see a little girl standing by the front door of the house, staring back at the tour group. There's a story about this poor seven year old girl whose father did horrendous things to her (I'll spare you the details - if you want them, you've got Google); but Tobias doesn't believe it's her, he believes it's a hag taking her form.
I don't think I ever want to leave this hotel. This is the danger with booking nice hotels, especially ones that have real charm like this.. this to me is far nicer than any Palazzo Versace or Sheraton etc could be.. this house was built in 1847 and I have the exposed brickwork in one wall of my room which just adds so much darn charm it's ridiculous. The bathroom is gorgeous and even has a small fireplace!! And with 'complimentary and casual' wine & cheese hour from 6pm - 7pm, and 'complimentary and casual' dessert hour (with coffees) from 8pm - 9pm, plus free hot breakfast lovingly hand made by "momma" virginia, why the hell WOULD you want to leave?? I typed this sitting in my four poster bed, on the most luxurious-feeling sheets you can possibly imagine, with beautiful combination feather and something else filling pillows propping me up, looking out my double white-shuttered windows at the trees and cobblestone street below. I could live here. In this room. Seriously. If this was a boarding house, I could actually live here. Never thought I'd say that I could live in a boarding house!
So I eventually pulled myself out of bed and said a fond farewell to both the hotel and the city, and headed down the I-95 to Brunswick, where I had the best gourmet hotdog of my life, and did a bit of sightseeing around the Golden Isles before heading back on the I-95 and being quite serious about getting very close to Alabama before turning in for the night. I had planned to drive to Tallahassee, the half-way point between Savannah and New Orleans, but as I left earlier than planned, I just kept driving until I could feel I was fatiguing. So I have pulled into a trusty Motel 6 in Pensacola, after going into the downtown area and having the best shrimp of my life in this seafood shack restaurant called Sam's. Blackened shrimp - and they were amazing. God they were so good.
I am apparently only three hours (give or take how leaden my foot becomes) out of New Orleans, so I'm planning on not setting an alarm (for once!!!) and just giving my body the sleep it needs, because oh boy, does it need it. Too many five or six hour nights (of sleep time I mean), too many ten hours of walking days, too many three hours or driving days (in addition to the walking).. I'm just about ready to catch me a cold if I don't get a good night's sleep. I DO want to go see what the fuss is all about re Pensacola's beaches - apparently the sand is pure white and the water is like something out of a Tahiti brochure, so I'll see how I feel about that in the morning.
I've learned a few things on this trip.. (this is clearly not an exhaustive list)
1) Speed limits are more of a suggestion, than a limit.. I have actually witnessed drivers go flying by me and NOT be pulled over by the Sheriff lurking to catch people speeding because they weren't going 'fast enough' to warrant him putting on his sirens.. mind you, if I'm doing 75, and they're flying past.. god only knows what they're doing..
2) EVERYTHING is cooked in meat products, so you have to be super careful if you wish to avoid eating a fatty meal - there's this meat product called 'fat back' and it seriously looks like just a lump of pig fat - apparently restaurants cook damn near everything in it.
3) Motel 6's might be scoffed at by the Americans as a 'pov' type hotel, but they are always clean, comfortable, and cheap.
4) The Lady & Sons is bloody ordinary (Paula Dean's restaurant). I have spared you my full opinion on the place because I would just rant for a good whole blog about it. TRULY disappointed. Do NOT go.
5) I'm actually pretty darn good at being solo. Who'd'uve thunk it?
Next stop - NEW ORLEANS!!
Later y'all!
M xx
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