Savannah!

I am realizing just what a pain it is to upload photos. I just spent 50 minutes uploading the Savannah photos to my computer, Shutterfly, and Facebook. Now, it's blogspot time.

Savannah was such an amazing city! It was so beautiful, cute, and full of history. L and I had a great time visiting his friends, and it was a perfect little getaway!

These three pictures pretty much sum up Savannah. I can do it in one word too: Antebellum.

This photo is of one of the most haunted homes in America. Now, I'm not sure what I think, but I'll tell you the story. Apparently, a doctor came to town who thought he knew the remedy for Yellow Fever. Something about drinking tar and other nonesense. He had a hospital of sorts, mostly children, but they all died of yellow fever. Feeling like a failure, he killed himself as well. The rumor is, they had to board up the windows on the top floor because people from the street would complain about seeing children's faces. No one's ever lived in this house more than a few months, and it's been on the market for years now.

Savannah is known as the city built on its dead. I don't have a picture for this story, but it's a neat story. There's a city cemetery in the middle of town, with only 600 headstones, but with what is believed to be 11,000 unmarked graves. During the height of yellow fever, something like 55 people died a day! A cart would come around town and you would throw your dead in the back, and they just piled them in the graveyard. Well, one day, as they opened the grave to put in more bodies (or actually, I think they were mausoleums), they noticed scratch marks inside. After some investigation, they realized that some people they thought were dead had only really passed out. From then on, they tied string to the hand of every body, which was attached to a bell. If they woke up and started moving about, the bell would ring, and the attendants knew to go let them out. Isn't that the creepiest story you've ever heard?! Can you imagine waking up in a dark mausoleum next to stinking rotting bodies! Oh my gosh, gives me the chills!!

This next picture is at Bonaventure Cemetery, made famous from the movie/book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." They had to remove the Bird Girl Statue because all the tourists were touching her, and they were afraid they would break her.

There were a lot of interesting other stories, too much for one blog. Here's a picture of a statue in Forsyth Park. All the statues in Savannah are positioned to be pointing either South or North, depending on the period during which the lived. They positioned them to be facing their enemies, so statues that defending them from the Spanish are pointed south, while those during the Civil War are pointed north. You can't really see the statue in this picture, but it gives a good idea of how pretty Forsyth Park is.

This is of the Mercer House, where Jim Williams lived. He saved and restored hundreds of old historic homes in Savannah. He was made infamous in the same book (known as just "The Book" here in Savannah) when he shot his servant and the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was written. I think I need to read that book, or at the least, check out the movie.

Let's see, what else. Most of my other pictures are of me and L, so I shan't be posting those. But we had a really lovely time. Savannah has an open container law, very nice. All of the bars would ask if you wanted your drink for here or to go. If to go, they gave it to you in a plastic cup and you could walk around the city, maybe a 4 by 4 block area, where there were lots of bars, lots of squares, lots of parks, it was pretty neat. I can see why it is such a popular destination for St. Patty's day. River Street was really neat, lots of restaurants and shops all on the water. I swear I haven't eaten that good in a long time. All of the food was so southern and decadent. Delicious, yes, but maybe a little too much. And my waistline is still showing that now! Even with all the walking we did, you just can't walk off Paula Dean's restaurant no matter how hard you try!

Well, I guess that's it. Hope you enjoyed your history lesson on Savannah. Really a neat city, tons to do, to see, you can walk everywhere, it was a lot of fun. Although, I will suggest not going between June and August! Yes, it gets mighty hot down there!