We decided that today would be a good day to explore places other than downtown, since the New Year’s Eve crowds were rather intense today but probably wouldn’t be on Sunday when they were all hung over. It proved to be a wise choice.
Breakfast was at Alex’s in Mount Pleasant. Then we covered most of Greater Charleston. It was all very nice and all, but I was amazed at how downtrodden most of the neighborhoods on the peninsula (Charleston north of downtown and the suburb of North Charleston) seemed. They weren’t scary bad, just very depressed. I’m sure the gentrification from downtown Charleston will catch up sooner or later, making them suitable for nothing but upper middle-class white folks.
On the west bank, however, there were some nice enough 1940s and 1950s areas I wouldn’t necessarily refuse to live in, if only they weren’t in South Carolina, whose sole purpose for existing seems to be to give North Carolina something to feel superior to.
We had our New Year’s Eve dinner at a very good Japanese steakhouse and went home to our ghetto motel to watch Dick Clark, and listen to fireworks and airplanes landing in the parking lot.
