#510 Friends in Charleston.

After a long stroll down King Street for window shopping, we met up with Jaime, an old high school friend, and her husband Justin for lunch at the supposedly haunted Poogan’s Porch. I was anxious about going to to the haunted restroom to wash my hands and insisted that Jaime come with me. Fortunately the restroom is no longer upstairs where the ghost is often sighted, so I could breathe easy. I was seriously afraid.

After a little more sightseeing downtown, Mitter and I were hot and tired from a short night’s sleep and decided nothing would be better than laying beside the pool for reading and a nap until tonight when we had dinner plans with one of my sweet former brides.

I was a little nervous about meeting Jessica (y’all know I’m a little shy and like for Ben to do all the talking whenever possible), but as soon she stepped out of the car and gave me a big hug I knew I had nothing to be nervous about. Although she and Shawn are both born and bred Pennsylvanians, their hospitality was purely southern-style. She, an Italian girl, found a great Italian restaurant in a newer part of town to introduce us to and we had the best tomato basil soup in the world.
Until tonight, I knew them only by their invitations that we did last fall.

Our dinner date turned into a 4-hour affair and the guys were talking about their running days (Shawn is a world-class collegiate runner, Ben ran cross country in high school), and we learned that the seemingly mild-mannered software engineer is in fact a hardcore competitive athlete. He plays hockey all the time even though they live in South Carolina now! It was exciting especially because this is only the second bride I’ve ever met out of the hundreds of weddings I’ve worked on. She was a doll and I really hope they’ll make good on that future visit to Mississippi.
I was just thinking how strange it was to do so much talking today with people other than each other. On vacation it’s always just us talking and doing and walking because you never know the people in the city you’re visiting. Today we were 10 hours from home and hung out with 4 friends. That makes the world feel like a much smaller place, doesn’t it?