Good Times

I had a good time this week! My good friend Madeleine, whom I met in Germany came down for three days from West Virginia. She is studying at WVU and decided to come visit us for a few days while she had some vacation time. I hope she had a good time, I know I did. I saw a little more of South Carolina than I have in the last seven months of living here. I guess having a friend over is a good excuse to go sightseeing, not that you need one to do so, but I hate doing a lot of that alone. Chris works throughout the week and I mostly work the weekends so its hard to find time to do stuff like that. She drove down Sunday night and Monday morning we went to the Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden. It was a fairly chilly day, but still enjoyable. We were able to leave the park for lunch and get back in with the same ticket so that was really cool! We ate lunch at a yummy little pizza place, it was goooooood! We went back to the zoo and had fun trying to subliminaly coax small children into jumping into the alligator pen just so we could see a little action! Zoo animals are l-a-z-y! But I guess I would be too......wait, I am........My favorite animals to see were the birds, they had pink cockatoos that were gorgeous! After the zoo we came home and Chris gave me a ride on the motorcycle. That was soooo much fun! My seat is so cushy and comfortable! Our helmets have the communications system in it so that we don't have to shout to one another! I love that bike, I can't wait for our first road trip!
Tuesday we headed out to Charleston, which is 100 miles east of Columbia. We mostly stayed in the Market area and the historical district. It was a beautiful day to be out and the mansions were amazing! Maddy and I were in awe, she totally loved it! We ate at a pretty popular seafood place called Hyman's Seafood. It was packed, but we got seated in less than 10 minutes and had our food served to us in about 20 minutes. I took a ton of photos, but unfortunately, since it was a very sunny day a lot of them came out dark. I guess I have to hit the photography books!
Wednesday, Madeleine explored down town on her own. She hit up the State building and took a tour. I stayed here at home preparing for a bbq. We had Lisa and James come over for dinner and then our friend Danielle showed up out of the blue and joined us. It was so nice having people over for a bbq, even though it was the middle of the week. We haven't had much guests over since we moved here so it was a lot of fun!
Friday, Ft. Jackson had a motorcycle safety rally. It was pretty cool to see all these soldiers on different motorcycles. Sadly, our motorcycle was in the shop getting its 8k mile service. It was pretty expensive, but worth it. There was a few goldwings out in the crowd and we met a Sfc who was in a Goldwing motorcycle club, that we will be joining soon! I can't wait! Well I have to get to work. I promise to post some pictures from the past week soon!