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Jan. 6th, 2006 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spokeSo here's what I spent my weekend doing:
Does that not sound like a description on a cereal box? XD
I drove all the way to St. Augustine! But what's even better is that I did it without directions other than what the road signs provided - and didn't get the tiniest bit lost! ^_^
Sadly, by the time I got there nearly everything was closed. But I was determined to walk around if nothing else! And so I did! On a tour of spookiness that wasn't actually very spooky. Which was good for me, considering I didn't actually want to be scared and usually don't. >.> But we had a very nice tour guide, who believed in ghosts and was using the most interesting terms. Ghosts apparently are electrical beings. >.> No, I'm really not sure I believed a word he said (aside from the historical anecdotes) but he believed it, yet was not mental about it. ^^
(Note that I believe in ghosts - I'm just not sure what I think of what he believed about them) (Also aggressively pushy people of any belief tend to annoy me, whether I agree with them or not :p )
...someone's chicken is like, right outside my door. I think it's sharing in the seed I've been putting out for the songbirds. !!!
But the tour was mostly pointing out various haunted areas, some historical anecdotes, noting that almost all of St. Augustine is if not outright haunted, at least possessed of a bad atmosphere. Which all things considered, it probably is. Lesse, what things stood out...
Ye Olde Non-Catholic burial grounds! No, seriously. Because it was a Catholic town for like 40 years, what they said went and one of the things they said was that the properly-consecrated burial grounds were Catholic-only. Everybody else got dumped outside the city limits, in this place. Unfortunately, I'm still no good at night pictures, so you really can't see much here. 'Twas not spooky in itself, although the idea of religiously segregated burial grounds creeps me out. Or maybe it's just the thought of being buried doing that. :P
Much talk of the yellow fever plauge that hit, and how people would be buried alive due to the disease inducing a comatose state, yada-yada stick bells in the coffins, origin of the phrases 'dead ringers' and 'graveyard shift' - I knew all this already. I work a graveyard shift, after all. ;p A thing I did not know - once upon a time there was a bishop in St. A., who died during the worst heat wave they had ever had. Record-breaking misery. So they try to get him buried as quickly as possible, but his being a bishop it must be done properly - they stick him in the wooden coffin to await the proceedings? Not fast enough. He starts to smell, which is disturbing and could make the funeral unbearable. So the undertaker tells them, look - I have this lead coffin with a glass viewing pane. We stick him in here, there's no way the smell will get out, and everything will be cool.
This is the point in the story at which my eyes got wide, because well. If you see this coming, you know why, and if not, see below. O.O
It seemed like a good idea, but what they hadn't taken into account was this: the human body, in decomposing, releases all its natural gases and what-have-you, and with the combination of the sealed lead and the heat added to the process... all the built up pressure only had one escape route. During the funeral, as people were coming up one by one to the viewing pane. The glass exploded. :x
The tour guide quoted a headline at about this point. "The people rose as one to flood the streets in vomit." This is where everybody laughs. Even now, I am trying to bite back on my laughter at this. I mean, that headline rocks. I apologized to the bishop under my breath, mostly out of this sense that I would want to be apologized to if it were me. Also it's just polite. But that was so funny! XD
This is the Love Tree. According to myth, kissing the tree means your love will be eternal - and the guide warns us not to go kissing the tree, because eternity is a very, very long time. Also, he pointed out to us that someone did carve the face there - so as to avoid anyone asking if that was a ghost. I got the impression he'd been annoyed by questions on that before. >.>
Inside the mission house/hospital. It was until... I think he said 1800-something, a royal hospital, meaning military only and no women allowed. There was much preforming of amputations and other such lovely medical work done there, and we got a detailed description of one went about cauterizing wounds back in the day. A bit too much information for me. :P But this is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in town. It did feel creepy, but that's one of the advantages of traveling inpacks a tour - safety in numbers! Also no one was exceptionally rude or stupid, by which I mean nobody tried to call the ghosts out, or try to scare anyone.
I took the picture as I was going out, last one out the door and I whispered a thank-you. Not sure why.
Tour finished, I began wandering about enjoying all the lights. The pictures were still lousy, but all these lights were still up from Christmas and New Years and it was lovely. Except the lights themselves were not particularly seasonal, all simple gold strings strung along underneath the trees' branches. It felt like being in Tolkein, at Bilbo's three hundred and eleventh birthday. (only, you know - without the food and noise and multitudes of hobbits) ^__^
Beautiful, and the artist's signature at the bottom included the fact that it was done last year.
One of many lovely paintings in a gallery - but this is the only one I got a decent picture of.
Now, some people reading this may remember (or may now suffer being reminded) that I squee'd at the stained glass mermaid in HP: Goblet of Fire. Well.
omg. SQUEE!!! omgomg. WANT! GREED! AVARICE, EVEN! :O ... ... ...thus it was that I ended up driving back out to Saint Augustine in the morning.
This picture is not nearly as cool as it first appeared. I thought maybe that white, moon-like object was a bit of glare? Cap from my water bottle, which was sitting on the dash. And the starish dots? I figure either dirt or dew on the windshield. However, considering it was snapped while driving, I thought it looked cool.
Blessed be the providers of coffee, for they prevent me from getting into wrecks whilst staying up insanely late in the grip of avarice. :P
Daylight? Improves visibility. Who knew? :P
In which I povide a mini-tour of my wandering whilst killing time and trying to find the place again - mouseovers ahoy! :
Finally, with a stitch in my side from walking, I make my way to the visitor's information center. There a nice old lady gives me a very nice map (d'oh!) and even hunts up the phone number of the shop in question.
This is where my heart breaks.
$695 dollars. ;_;
Now I am arguing with myself about how I will approach trying to save up the money for this, when I have so many other things I need to be spending my money on, like my health in general and my car in particular (hello, check engine light! Didn't miss you. :p) and adding to this aggravation is the fact that I noticed my grandmother's plates in an antique shop. A set of four dishes, $475. I had no idea - these are the plates I use on a daily basis! Which automatically raises the thought of selling some of those, except that feels ...low. And even if I were to consider it, I would have to let my sister know, because I'd consider those as much hers as mine.
In the meantime, I shall continue in my greed-induced angst and drooling, while eating off of antiques. *head.desk.*
And I was going to say more here, but I am yawning and still have a letter to mail. Augh.
Does that not sound like a description on a cereal box? XD
I drove all the way to St. Augustine! But what's even better is that I did it without directions other than what the road signs provided - and didn't get the tiniest bit lost! ^_^
Sadly, by the time I got there nearly everything was closed. But I was determined to walk around if nothing else! And so I did! On a tour of spookiness that wasn't actually very spooky. Which was good for me, considering I didn't actually want to be scared and usually don't. >.> But we had a very nice tour guide, who believed in ghosts and was using the most interesting terms. Ghosts apparently are electrical beings. >.> No, I'm really not sure I believed a word he said (aside from the historical anecdotes) but he believed it, yet was not mental about it. ^^
(Note that I believe in ghosts - I'm just not sure what I think of what he believed about them) (Also aggressively pushy people of any belief tend to annoy me, whether I agree with them or not :p )
...someone's chicken is like, right outside my door. I think it's sharing in the seed I've been putting out for the songbirds. !!!
But the tour was mostly pointing out various haunted areas, some historical anecdotes, noting that almost all of St. Augustine is if not outright haunted, at least possessed of a bad atmosphere. Which all things considered, it probably is. Lesse, what things stood out...
Ye Olde Non-Catholic burial grounds! No, seriously. Because it was a Catholic town for like 40 years, what they said went and one of the things they said was that the properly-consecrated burial grounds were Catholic-only. Everybody else got dumped outside the city limits, in this place. Unfortunately, I'm still no good at night pictures, so you really can't see much here. 'Twas not spooky in itself, although the idea of religiously segregated burial grounds creeps me out. Or maybe it's just the thought of being buried doing that. :P
Much talk of the yellow fever plauge that hit, and how people would be buried alive due to the disease inducing a comatose state, yada-yada stick bells in the coffins, origin of the phrases 'dead ringers' and 'graveyard shift' - I knew all this already. I work a graveyard shift, after all. ;p A thing I did not know - once upon a time there was a bishop in St. A., who died during the worst heat wave they had ever had. Record-breaking misery. So they try to get him buried as quickly as possible, but his being a bishop it must be done properly - they stick him in the wooden coffin to await the proceedings? Not fast enough. He starts to smell, which is disturbing and could make the funeral unbearable. So the undertaker tells them, look - I have this lead coffin with a glass viewing pane. We stick him in here, there's no way the smell will get out, and everything will be cool.
This is the point in the story at which my eyes got wide, because well. If you see this coming, you know why, and if not, see below. O.O
It seemed like a good idea, but what they hadn't taken into account was this: the human body, in decomposing, releases all its natural gases and what-have-you, and with the combination of the sealed lead and the heat added to the process... all the built up pressure only had one escape route. During the funeral, as people were coming up one by one to the viewing pane. The glass exploded. :x
The tour guide quoted a headline at about this point. "The people rose as one to flood the streets in vomit." This is where everybody laughs. Even now, I am trying to bite back on my laughter at this. I mean, that headline rocks. I apologized to the bishop under my breath, mostly out of this sense that I would want to be apologized to if it were me. Also it's just polite. But that was so funny! XD
This is the Love Tree. According to myth, kissing the tree means your love will be eternal - and the guide warns us not to go kissing the tree, because eternity is a very, very long time. Also, he pointed out to us that someone did carve the face there - so as to avoid anyone asking if that was a ghost. I got the impression he'd been annoyed by questions on that before. >.>
Inside the mission house/hospital. It was until... I think he said 1800-something, a royal hospital, meaning military only and no women allowed. There was much preforming of amputations and other such lovely medical work done there, and we got a detailed description of one went about cauterizing wounds back in the day. A bit too much information for me. :P But this is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in town. It did feel creepy, but that's one of the advantages of traveling in
I took the picture as I was going out, last one out the door and I whispered a thank-you. Not sure why.
Tour finished, I began wandering about enjoying all the lights. The pictures were still lousy, but all these lights were still up from Christmas and New Years and it was lovely. Except the lights themselves were not particularly seasonal, all simple gold strings strung along underneath the trees' branches. It felt like being in Tolkein, at Bilbo's three hundred and eleventh birthday. (only, you know - without the food and noise and multitudes of hobbits) ^__^
Beautiful, and the artist's signature at the bottom included the fact that it was done last year.
One of many lovely paintings in a gallery - but this is the only one I got a decent picture of.
Now, some people reading this may remember (or may now suffer being reminded) that I squee'd at the stained glass mermaid in HP: Goblet of Fire. Well.
omg. SQUEE!!! omgomg. WANT! GREED! AVARICE, EVEN! :O ... ... ...thus it was that I ended up driving back out to Saint Augustine in the morning.
This picture is not nearly as cool as it first appeared. I thought maybe that white, moon-like object was a bit of glare? Cap from my water bottle, which was sitting on the dash. And the starish dots? I figure either dirt or dew on the windshield. However, considering it was snapped while driving, I thought it looked cool.
Blessed be the providers of coffee, for they prevent me from getting into wrecks whilst staying up insanely late in the grip of avarice. :P
Daylight? Improves visibility. Who knew? :P
In which I povide a mini-tour of my wandering whilst killing time and trying to find the place again - mouseovers ahoy! :
Finally, with a stitch in my side from walking, I make my way to the visitor's information center. There a nice old lady gives me a very nice map (d'oh!) and even hunts up the phone number of the shop in question.
This is where my heart breaks.
$695 dollars. ;_;
Now I am arguing with myself about how I will approach trying to save up the money for this, when I have so many other things I need to be spending my money on, like my health in general and my car in particular (hello, check engine light! Didn't miss you. :p) and adding to this aggravation is the fact that I noticed my grandmother's plates in an antique shop. A set of four dishes, $475. I had no idea - these are the plates I use on a daily basis! Which automatically raises the thought of selling some of those, except that feels ...low. And even if I were to consider it, I would have to let my sister know, because I'd consider those as much hers as mine.
In the meantime, I shall continue in my greed-induced angst and drooling, while eating off of antiques. *head.desk.*
And I was going to say more here, but I am yawning and still have a letter to mail. Augh.
