ThePassportPrincess

Day 29 – Savannah (Georgia)

September 10, 2015June 13, 2016SarahLeave a comment

I want to live here!
Savannah, Georgia is just the nicest little town.
When we arrived on Wednesday we had a walking tour organised but as we were early we had to wait around in Forsyth Park for a bit.
The park was just beautiful. The sun was out and even though it was probably a bit too humid for me, I defiantly appreciated the beauty of Savannah.
We took a big group picture under these tree’s but I unfortunately don’t have the picture to show ya!

Savannah is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia with people here being know for their Southern charm and hospitality. The city’s former promotional name was actually “Hostess City of the South”
When we started our tour, our local tour guide took us on a walk and showed our Contiki group lots of statues and monuments while explaining the history behind them all. Scenes from the movie ‘Forest Gump’ were actually filmed in Savannah. If you’ve ever seen the movie, you’ll remember Forest sat on a bench saying the famous quote “Life is like a box of chocolates”. Well that bench was on the north side of Chippewa Square in Savannah but now resides in a Museum here.

Chipewa-Square

Savannah’s historic district has 22 squares surrounded by beautiful homes, churches and huge live Oak trees. Our tour guide only took us to a few of them otherwise we’d be there all day.
Calhoun Square is just two blocks from Forsyth Park and was once a place for schoolchildren and a bit of a backyard for those in the heart of Downtown Savannah.
Crawford Square is the only square with a fence surrounding it. It also has it’s own basketball court for anyone to play in and it’s very own gazebo
Greene Square is great for having a picnic whereas Lafayette Square is home to the ornate Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which has the highest twin steeples in all of downtown.

cathedral-st-john-baptist

When our tour was over, we had over 2 hours until we were allowed to check in to our hotel so a few of us went and got food from this restaurant called Wild Wings.
They had 1/2 price flat breads on Wednesdays so that’s what I got haha.
Our meals weren’t the nicest but I think we’re starting to realize that lately with cheap burger and pizza joints.

We still had lots of time after lunch so we went for a walk and I bought a magnet to add to my collection. We also came across a candy store! (My dream)

I bought some candy and the boys bought iced drinks as it was so hot.

To be honest I think I just bought candy as I was in a Candy store and felt like I should. I’m usually such a snack person and I’d rather have little meals throughout the day, but ever since I’ve been here I barely eat snacks. I just have lunch and dinner and sometimes breakfast if I feel like it.
Even yesterday on our coach stop I bought Twix bars and some pringles but struggled to eat them. Maybe I just don’t really like American snacks (everything is just way too big for one person)

After our Candy stop we went to the hotel and was finally able to check in.
As I still hadn’t slept properly, I had a bit of a nap until my room mate woke me up at 6.30pm to get ready for the night out.
She’s so good to me haha. Honestly, she’s like the perfect room mate. She knew I’d need over an hour to get ready so made sure I was up before 8pm 😀

When I was ready, everyone on Contiki headed off to this Karoke/gay bar for some cheap drinks.
I was there for just over an hour and was a bit bored so me, Marisa, my room mate Amy and Paige went down the road to get some super late dinner.
I got some nachos which wernt too bad!

Amy and Paige headed off home after that but me and Marisa stayed out and met up with everyone else at this club called Treehouses. It’s in the center of Downtown Savannah and has two large balconies over-looking City Market.

treehouse1-1 We danced there for a bit and had some more drinks then eventually stumbled home around 1am.
There wasn’t really much else happening and I was sooo tired so it was probably probably a good thing I went home early.

Day 28 – St Augustine

September 10, 2015June 10, 2016SarahLeave a comment

We headed off to St Augustine on Tuesday morning.
We had a pretty big day as we stopped off for 5 hours at the NASA space centre in Florida.

There’s actually quite a lot to do at the Space Center that I didn’t even end up seeing everything. I went with Marisa and a few others and did the bus tour.

To be honest the bus tour was so boring. I would not recommend it.
We went around to where they launch the space rockets which was all good to see but the guy on the bus had the type of voice that just made you want to go to sleep. And I think a few people from our tour actually did. Maybe I just associate buses with sleeping now because that’s all I seem to do on them.

The bus tour took nearly 2 hours but we stopped at this place where you could eat and they had all the info about the launches etc…

The above picture is the actual control room where they re-inacted on TV screens what was happening when they launched the space shuttle that went to the moon.

I also got to touch a piece of the moon!
It just felt like rock though so don’t get too excited haha.

After we’d explored lots, we went on a space shuttle simulator. You basically get strapped in and it gives you the feeling of actually being in the space shuttle as it launches.
It’s not the nicest experience when you’re ‘in space’. It’s like you loose gravity but makes you feel sick a little bit haha.
It was still cool to experience though.

By 3pm we had to be back at the bus to head to St Augustine.
It seemed like the shitty weather was following us because when we got to St Augustine it was pouring down with rain.
They must get used to their flooding, because back home it’d make front page news whereas here it was literally just water everywhere we went and no one seemed to care.

St Augustine is located in the northeast part of Florida so they have a very tropical climate as well. We were visiting in their wet season (May – October) so it was pretty much a given that it’d rain.
The Bermuda High pumps in hot and unstable tropical air from the Bahamas and Gulf of Mexico, which helps create the daily thundershowers that they get all the time in the summer months. Apparently intense but very brief downpours are common in mid-summer in the city.

St. Augustine was actually the first city in America in 1565. Therefore making it the oldest city in the United States.

When we got to our hotel we had a few hours to get ready until we all set off to an optional dinner our tour Manager recommended.

It was at this place called BBQ ‘something’ (Man I should have really found out the name for this blog) and it was so good!
Our food took ages to come out as there was quite a few of us, but when it did it was really yummy.
I’m loving the crispy type chicken they have here with this creamy gravy they put on top. I had something very similar back in Dallas so it reminded me of that. (The Dallas one was still better though)
They had this random jalapeño bread with it as well which wasn’t that great. And I wasn’t a big fan of their Kumara here haha. But the rest was still good!

After dinner we all went to this bar down the road and had $3 drinks all night. Safe to say I probably had too much to drink and didn’t end up getting home until 6am. The Contiki life aye!
I didn’t even bother going to sleep, I just packed my bag, got changed and went and had breakfast before boarding the bus at 8am haha.

St Augustine, even though I felt there wasn’t tooooo much to do still seemed like a nice little town to visit.
I can’t really judge half of these places I’ve been going to lately because we’re there for such a short period of time and with the weather being shit I’ve been really slack at exploring anything past eating out and the nightlife.

Day 27 – Daytona Beach

September 10, 2015June 10, 2016SarahLeave a comment

We left Miami at about 8.30am on Monday morning to head off to Daytona Beach.
I didn’t actually really sleep on the bus for some reason this time.
It was one of our shorter bus journeys so I just looked out the window the whole time haha.

To be honest, my night in Daytona was very boring. More so because I had a ‘rest’ night.
When we arrived in Daytona a few people on the tour did an optional Daytona Speedway Tour before the hotel but I didn’t do it.

The rest of us headed off to the hotel and checked in with all our bags.
The hotel we stayed at was pretty basic but it had a pool and it was right on the beach. You could tell it’d be used for Spring break parties as well haha.

I decided to do my washing at the hotel. When I put my washing in the machine I realised I didn’t grab any washing powder off our tour manager and he was out so I used one of the washing machine dispensers for a packet but it didn’t give me any powder 😑
I decided to just wash my clothes without any washing powder and now they smell average.

I met up with Diogenes a bit later and we did a little bit of souvenir shopping in the rain.
I bought my magnet and he bought this random mask to take back home to Australia.
We also went to Walgreen’s and bought some Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream and proceeded to turn into 2 girls sitting watching TV and eating the whole tub before dinner.
(I thought we had no freezer at the time so the only option was to eat it all)

That night we had a buffet dinner at the hotel. There was salads, bread,
sasuages and other meats.
It was so average. I kind of just picked at the salad and had a bit of the meat then left the rest. I probably wasn’t very hungry as I ate so much ice cream before – hand as well.

After dinner, a few of us went down the road to this sports type bar. I didn’t drink and we only stayed for a couple and then walked back to the hotel.
I ended up having a shower back at the hotel and hopping into bed and watching TV while writing my previous blogs.

Overall I barely saw Daytona beach, just the outside of my hotel and a couple of shops that were around us.
It was more to do with the fact the weather was really shit so I didn’t want to go out and I had a big night in Miami the night before.

My impression of Daytona was a bit dirty. To be honest I’m kinda judging it from our hotel and the area we were in. Plus the type of homeless people put me off a bit.
I’m sure on a nice day Daytona is really beautiful though. If I go back I’d rather spend it in a different area.