St. Augustine

Ok, enough with the article. Let’s go back to writing about our journey and about what we’ve seen. And we’ve seen St. Augustine. Polish journalist Wojtek Orliński in his book about Route 66 ("Route 66 does not exist") wrote that the worst and scariest adventure during his two-week-long trip was loosing his sunglassess. Our biggest adventure in St. Augustine was that we got there at 17.08 military time. And the public toilets close at 17.00. Just like the seventeenth century fort next to them. So our beginning there was pretty scary and maybe a little bit disappointing.

St. Augustine is the oldest constantly inhabited town in the United States. It was founded by Spanish colonizators in 1565. Situated in a beautiful place by the mouth of the river it’s kind of a historical village reminding old Spain.

There’s an "old town” marked on our map, but the truth is that just a few steps off the main street (full of nice little cafes, too expensive restaurants and gift and chocolate shops) there are no more shops and pavements.

But it is quite nice anyway. In tiny streets people sit and chat at the porches of pretty houses straight from "True Blood", more often the rocking chairs stand there empty waiting for a warmer weather to come so they can fulfill their destiny. Most of the town we see after dark, on a chilly evening. As usually it took us a while to get ready. First we had to do laundry (caused partly by Kalina a day before) and get some brake fluid for our car. Somehow it got late …

It was cold...

...not for everyone though

Oh well, at least we saved some money on the entrance tickets to local attractions. And beside the fort there was also the oldest wood school house...

... and the oldest house in the United States (built in1727). 

But as we got there so late we could see that after dark all the old town is lit up like Santa Clause’s home town.

Maciek was very happy through the entire trip, when carried on Pawel’s shoulders he was waving to everyone. He even waved to a policeman passing us on the bike and he got from him a sticker "Junior St. Augustine Police Officer". From now on he directs the traffic on the pavements and in supermarkets and gives tickets to everyone (we have no idea where he learned about the tickets, we never get any), showing his sticker authority. 

To sum up: we have a friend who dreams about cooking a good soup and even though she would follow the recipe she always gets (or that’s what she says) a water with veggies in it. It’s pretty much the same with St. Augustine. Recipe is good: take few old building and a nice main street, add little shops and cafes and you should have a good old town. But here something is missing, it’s still just a little town pretending it’s historical. Let's not complain as people from Poland usually do. It is definitely nice, just more as a stop on the way, then as a 3 hour trip each way...

As compensation for a boring post – great smile from Kalina:)