Our stop in Jacksonville was an interesting time. We stopped there to see Alex's Uncle and Aunt and his two cousins and to spend some time with them. We had a lot of fun with them, hearing old stories from Ukraine and laughing about family jokes and of course eating lots of good Russian food. We also loved their silly dog who sleeps in weird places. The city of Jacksonville though was kind of strange. Alex's cousin Vitaliy, who has an excellent stache!, took us into the city or first night and gave us a little tour. He explained that some years back they decided to turn the entire county into the city of Jacksonville, so it actually takes a half hour or so to get from one area to another in the city.
He was also telling us about how everyone just lives in the suburbs and no one really lives in the downtown of Jacksonville, so in the evenings the city is totally dead. Once we walked into the city, we saw what he meant. I've never seen a large city so completely deserted at night. Literally the only people we saw were homeless people. And it was only 10 PM! We had also just walked through this dark area along the river where there were all these sketchy looking men staring at us, when his cousin informed us that Jacksonville was the murder capital for a little while. We left pretty quickly after that. It was still fun walking around with Vitaliy though.
The next day the rain let up long enough for us to go to St. Augustine which was about 20 minutes south of Jacksonville. This city is full of history and most well known for the Castillo de San Marcos, which is the oldest military fort in the U.S. built originally by the Spanish in 1672. The history surrounding it was actually pretty interesting and it was worth going to just to see the poor park rangers who have to wear 1600s Spanish military costumes there!
The city also has the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the U.S, lots of old churches and other beautiful old buildings. It was a fun place to walk around with all its cute little shops and art galleries to pop into to escape the heat and humidity, which we hated by the way. At one cafe where I got an amazing coconut frappe, we met a retired guy who had been to Seattle so we started a long conversation about the beauty of Seattle and I'm pretty sure we single-handily convinced him to move to Seattle. We also met a really sweet lady working at an art gallery where we bought a painting. When she heard we were on our honeymoon, she got all excited and let us pick another painting for free and then encouraged us to fight for a good marriage and told us about how her and her husband had been married for 40 years. She was such a blessing!
After that Sasha hit the beaches to go treasure hunting with his metal detector (his new favorite hobby), and I sat down in the shade. Before I knew it, butterflies were swarming all around me and it was one of the most beautiful, peaceful moments of my life. I also got to talk to a sweet old man who was shuffling around behind me. You know it's going to be a good conversation when it begins with "Hey Kiddo"...
Our stop in Jacksonville was an interesting time. We stopped there to see Alex's Uncle and Aunt and his two cousins and to spend some time with them. We had a lot of fun with them, hearing old stories from Ukraine and laughing about family jokes and of course eating lots of good Russian food. We also loved their silly dog who sleeps in weird places. The city of Jacksonville though was kind of strange. Alex's cousin Vitaliy, who has an excellent stache!, took us into the city or first night and gave us a little tour. He explained that some years back they decided to turn the entire county into the city of Jacksonville, so it actually takes a half hour or so to get from one area to another in the city. 
The next day the rain let up long enough for us to go to St. Augustine which was about 20 minutes south of Jacksonville. This city is full of history and most well known for the Castillo de San Marcos, which is the oldest military fort in the U.S. built originally by the Spanish in 1672. The history surrounding it was actually pretty interesting and it was worth going to just to see the poor park rangers who have to wear 1600s Spanish military costumes there!
The city also has the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the U.S, lots of old churches and other beautiful old buildings. It was a fun place to walk around with all its cute little shops and art galleries to pop into to escape the heat and humidity, which we hated by the way. At one cafe where I got an amazing coconut frappe, we met a retired guy who had been to Seattle so we started a long conversation about the beauty of Seattle and I'm pretty sure we single-handily convinced him to move to Seattle. We also met a really sweet lady working at an art gallery where we bought a painting. When she heard we were on our honeymoon, she got all excited and let us pick another painting for free and then encouraged us to fight for a good marriage and told us about how her and her husband had been married for 40 years. She was such a blessing!
After that Sasha hit the beaches to go treasure hunting with his metal detector (his new favorite hobby), and I sat down in the shade. Before I knew it, butterflies were swarming all around me and it was one of the most beautiful, peaceful moments of my life. I also got to talk to a sweet old man who was shuffling around behind me. You know it's going to be a good conversation when it begins with "Hey Kiddo"...
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