Hello fellow travelers!
We are in Jacksonville, Florida, USA!
You might ask, what are you doing there?
One of my hobbies is having language exchanges with foreigners who are learning Spanish.
One of them is Richard.
We took advantage of the opportunity of taking a roadtrip around the Deep South of the USA
to meet him and his family.
In fact, we are going to stay in their home for a few days!
So, we are going to live the real American way of life!
For example, we are in a subdivision that is like the movies, with their lawn, their flags…
We saw a sign with the "yard of the month"!
This is Richard's house!
Hello fellow travelers! Welcome!
This is the friend with whom I talk every Friday for one hour. Half an hour English, the other half Spanish…
his Spanish level is really good!
The first visit will be Saint Augustine.
It's around one hour driving distance from Jacksonville. It is the first town founded by Europeans in the USA.
When the Spanish naval officer Pedro Menéndez founded Saint Augustine, it had nine forts built of wood.
But, due to the attacks of the English pirates, they had to build Castillo de San Marcos of stone.
They took the Stone from Anastasia Island, opposite Saint Augustine, crossing the Bridge of Lions.
Another funny thing is this flag, flown throughout Saint Augustine,
Florida State flag because it is the Burgundy flag, pretty famous in Spanish history!
Names of the streets will remind you of its Spanish history.
But we have to say that they have made a mess with the spelling...
We are going to have lunch in an authentic bbq house.
As tonight we have a dinner, we don't want to eat too much now.
But it's difficult not to eat too much in the States.
Look! We ordered just ONE main course for sharing among the three of us!
What do you think about the iced tea cup that they gave me?
They don't want me to dehydrate… but not just today, throughout my whole vacation!
If you want to feel like an American, you have to walk in the streets with a big plastic cup with some liquid in it.
It doesn't matter the liquid. It can be coffee, lemonade, iced tea… but a gigantic cup…
Now we are driving across the Bridge of Lions to Anastasia Island.
It's hot!
Well, our friends, we are going to end this day having dinner with
Bill, Judy and some other Hadden family's friends.
Bill is a real wine lover. But, we had to make a deal with him… we had a challenge…
we will try his great wines but… we have to cook a typical Spanish dish.
So we thought in of a dish that is not very difficult and that for which it is easy to find the ingredients here.
So, Spanish potato tortilla.
We have some experience…
Yes, we cooked one in our whole life…
No, it's not true… I made several, some years ago… and I made two tortillas some weeks ago,
yes, with my mother, in order to practice…
Tortilla with onion, of course!
How is it going?
It's going well!
The issue is that they have smaller potatoes and eggs and than we are used to in Spain,
and I had to change the recipe.
I think it is too light and liquid because I put in too much egg…
well… they don't know…
This is a key moment because we have to turn it over.
Buff… 700 kilos of potatoes, 200 kilos of eggs… a heavy pan and just with this plate…
We are a team!
Our tortilla passed the test!
Let's see how it works… we rehearsed it but…
Good bye, fellow travelers!
It's 7am but I can't sleep anymore… we went to bed at 10pm and look how sunny it is…
How the rest of the world can survive without shutters? I can't understand it…
We want to live a typical Southern Sunday. There is nothing more American on Sunday than going to church.
Yes, but here the service is at 10am, not at noon like in Spain… why? Because they have lunch at noon!
This church is Southern Baptist. It's huge! Today for example, more than 800 people can be inside!
What do you think about the service?
It was good. It was very inspiring, the pastor was really kind… the music, the orchestra and the choir…
By the way, the Hadden family belongs to the choir, so…
I was really happy with the words on the screen. It was like karaoke…
Maybe it's not very polite to call it karaoke…
Yes, maybe it is a bit irreverent, but, it's just to easily explain it to you… if you see the lyrics, people sing more!
After the service, the custom is to have lunch with the community friends.
By the way, if I do up the shirt, I look like…
Forrest Gump!
Put it more latin style…
You know… lunch consists of Ceasar salads, hamburgers, pizzas…
nothing compared with our Sunday lunch of paella, cocido…
We ordered two hamburgers and they look yummy!
Do you know what root beer is? "zarzaparrilla!
Los Pitufos (The Smurfs) drank it!
It seems to be very sweet, doesn't it? Like Cherry Coke…
We are visiting Jacksonville city center.
Continuing with Religion, 80% of the American believers are Protestant, followed by Catholic.
We are now in the "Cathedral District". In this quarter there is a Methodist church,
Presbyterian, Episcopal and Catholic.
This sign that you are seeing, "tailgaters parking", refers to the back door of the pick-up trucks.
On match day, they open that door and they take out a lot of food, drinks, even barbecue grills!
So, they celebrate the pre-match with their friends and family.
There is a big field with these tailgate parking areas. It's usual to reserve it for the whole season.
Discovering more funny things about the history of Jacksonville.
The main center of silent movies in the world was here, the Norman Studios,
before Hollywood and L.A were the place of the movies with sound.
For example, some of the most important movies of Laurel & Hardy were filmed here!
Springfield is Jacksonville's historic city center and one of the few quarters that wasn't burnt in the 1901 fire.
Richard, tell us… we are entering Amelia island. Why is it so special?
It's very beautiful, there are a lot of expensive houses and an amazing beach.
It has also a fort, right?
Yes, Fort Clinch.
We are on Fernandina Beach, on Amelia island.
It's one of the favorite spots of American people for their vacation.
It's 40 minutes north from Jacksonville. You have to follow Fort Clinch signs.
Watch out with the road. We saw a deer, but they warn you that there can be turtles, alligators…
a lot of animals, so, be careful!
I forgot my swimsuit!
The name of Fort Clinch comes from General Clinch.
He was crucial during the war against the Seminole Indians in this part of Florida.
This fort was also pretty important during the Civil War.
I'm reading a notice from the Headquarters: "Soldiers must take a bath on Saturday and Wednesday."
And, "only "respectable" women can be hired for the laundry."
We stopped in a restaurant called Sandollar. It was high time to drink a beer!
This one is from Jacksonville, its name is Intuition. Look how nice this place is. It's like a fishermen restaurant…
Our last stop of this day is Kingsley Plantation. Its name comes from Zephaniah Kingsley, one of its owners.
His story is very interesting: he bought a 13-year-old slave, Anita. He married her.
She was very respected because she helped her husband with the managing of the property.
They could get married because the Spanish law at that time allowed the emancipation
and the rights of the emancipated slaves.
But, when Englishmen took control of this area, as they didn't have this right of emancipation,
Anita and Zephaniah moved to Haiti.
Their two children stayed in Jacksonville and in fact, they married rich white owners of this area.
Ana's house and slaves' houses were built with a material called tabby.
It's a kind of cement composed by shells of oysters, mussels… It's incredible how hard it is,
because these buildings have survived for more than 200 years!
They say tabby is a mix of three cultures: the Spanish, the African and the American Indian.
We can see the slaves' hamlets outside the plantation.
They are also built with tabby and it's impressive how well-built they are!
Spanish moss, by the way, I don't know why it has such a name… it didn't come from Spain. It's a kind of parasite…
I don't know what Americans want to tell us…
Spanish moss is something typical from the South. It's really beautiful and gives a mysterious look to the trees.
Well, fellow travelers!, we end up this trip to Jacksonville and the Hadden family.
Now we rented a car that is going to bring us new adventures in at the South of the US.
We are going to post amazing videos about towns and zones hardly known to the Spanish audience,
more used to the Western coast. Be sure to follow us!
Thank you very much, Richard, family and friends, for your kindness and hospitality.
For people like us, who like travelling,
having the opportunity to share experiences with local people is great.
It's amazing to be able to see the country and their culture like locals instead of like tourists.
It was a magical experience!
You know that you have a lot of information about this trip on our website.
You also know that we post on Faceboook, Twitter and Instagram on a daily basis.
We'll see you on a new adventure of Viajandoanuestroaire
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