Rome-ing Minutes: Savannah Day #0

This is a guest post by Josh Markovic. The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine and not provided by anyone else including (but not limited to) Emily Schlussel, Emily S. Markovic, Emily Gail Schlussel Markovic, Emily G.S. Markovic or any other person. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed what I have to say. Comments made in response to posts are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any person. It is not the responsibility of any person to ensure that questions are answered.

When we heard the Obama administration was lifting travel restrictions to Cuba, we immediately started looking for flights to Havana. A small typo later, we had plane tickets and hotel in north Georgia.

Emily returned from Argentina early Wednesday morning which gave me serious FOMO. We booked this trip late Wednesday night just so I can get back at Melissa. Take that! When we packed, I asked Emily if she has headphones and she said they give them out in first class. Let’s just say she has a lot of adjusting to do. We woke up at an ungodly hour, something like 7:30, to drive to the airport and park our car in a lot. We paid $27.79 to park from Friday at 8:30 to Monday at 4:30. Emily, if you are reading this, we parked in section B3. It was a pretty big lot with over 1400 spaces but we only used one.

Ungodly Timed Selfie

We checked our bags because Emily didn't want to risk losing our sunscreen and headed to security. I tried to distract TSA by going through the metal detector with my shoes on so Emily can sneak a bottle of water into the highly secure area. TSA pulled our favorite perpetrator aside and confiscated her water which brought up deep and dark memories of me losing my Nutella in Europe. I miss you, Nuttie!

Everyone's favorite perp ;)

We bolted to the expensive lounge and grabbed some breakfast. I had a bagel (let’s just say it was chof-J) with Philadelphia cream cheese. Emily had two bowls of oatmeal. I’m 99% sure this is hereditary but I “borrowed” two tea bags (earl gray for Poppy and green tea for Zahava) and two sugar packets. And a Splenda. We don’t even use Splenda but just in case we do. I drank a terrible latte while Emily mixed an espresso and hot chocolate. The perfect coffee to drink in an airport: Jet Fuel.

We also realized we weren’t sitting next to each other on the flight so we were the first to board and when my neighbor came to sit down, I asked him to switch seats. What a tzadik! We sat on the runway for quite some time and took off an hour after scheduled departure. When we were about to get up into the air, Emily tried leaning over to cuddle next to me. The reason I pay for first class is so I don’t have to touch anyone but there are always a few exceptions. Well, just one exception but she uses the exception multiple times on the same flight. To Emily’s dismay, there was a HUGE armrest between us and she wasn’t able to put her head anywhere near mine. She loudly yells “Why can’t we sit in coach with the rest of the plane?!” When we got a few stares, I pretended to chuckle and hoped everyone misheard something like “Why can’t we get our eggs poached with the rest of the plane?”

Our seats in First Class never really impressed me. I still like when the flight attendants call me “sir” and bring me snacks. To our serious disappointment, there were no orchids on the entire flight. Not one. Oh yeah, Emily had a fig bar (yuck) and we both had Milano cookies (yum).

We booked our flights to Savannah and a return flight home for Em. The #hashtag for this trip was supposed to #markovicsdontsiticoach or #emergencyvacation but after booking a vacation without a return trip for me, it will now be #getjoshhome. We may have to pay cash, use lots of miles, or heaven forbid, sit in coach. Only time and British Airways will tell.

When we landed, we were literally the first ones off the plane. Our bags were also the first off the plane but then again, we were probably the only people who checked bags. We had about 30 minutes to kill in the airport so we spoke with the nice information kiosk folks, I called into work, Emily checked out her medical school application and watched The Fosters. We hopped on a CAT shuttle for $5 a person and headed downtown to the ‘transit station’ which didn’t really look like a Port Authority Bus Terminal but more like a 167T stop on Teaneck Road. We found the FREE bus called the “DOT” but there was no driver on it. Emily and I started planning our route and decided to walk because our hotel was about a 15 minute walk. We spotted a huge building with magen davids on it. We ran over to find it was the student center of SCAD, the best academic institution in the entire city!

We stopped into a popcorn store so Emily can sniff around and tell everyone how much she missed Dale and Thomas Popcorn.

An hour later, we arrived in our hotel. We got our upgrade (honeymoon + platinum status) and settled in our unupgraded room. Savannah has a pretty cool layout with a ton of parks/squares laid around the entire city. Each square had a different design but they all have a plaque commemorating someone who lived somewhere in the 1700’s. I feel like Savannah is the AOL of the USA.

We came to Forsyth Park which is like the Central Park of Savannah except without all pigeons. Beautiful place! One thing that caught my eye was the war memorial for confederate soldiers - I still can’t get over it. We stopped off at Mickve Israel, the 3^rd oldest congregation in the United States. It resembles a church with its grand neo-gothic architecture. Inside, there is a balcony, which hosts the choir and organ (and has never been used as a women’s section). We took the tour and paid the $4/person suggested donation. They possess the two oldest Torah scrolls in the United States which date back the 1400’s. Apparently, the serious humidity is good for deer skin and one of the Torahs is even read once a year on the shul’s anniversary. The Temple is now part of the Reform movement, and has services on Friday night and Saturday morning. Reform Judaism interprets “Morning” as 11am.

We walked back towards our hotel and found the birth house of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. They had just closed 20 minutes earlier but Emily insisted on knocking on the door while I sheepishly objected. We kept asking around for a grocery store and everyone kept telling us to go to Farmer’s market on Saturday or CVS on Bull Street. CVS a silly name for a grocery store because in the northeast, it’s a fairly large pharmacy, three of which are in Teaneck. As we walked up to CVS, we realized we’re going to need an alternative because there is no actual grocery store in the entire downtown Savannah area. We eventually found a gas station with a pretty decent selection of hummus, bread, flat pretzels and the likes. Emily also bought peanut butter for us even though it was JIF.