Anyway, Day One - Sunday, September 28, 2008.
I did Williamsburg and Jamestown, with the intention of getting Yorktown done as well, but it didn't turn out that way. Because I didn't foresee enjoying Jamestown as much as I did and ended up spending about five hours there, and then theres this pesky thing of hours being from about 9 to 5.
Which completely sucks when you are a tourist that wants to go do stuff and you are in a city completely devoid of a Nightlife (aka, Williamsburg)
Anyway, as mentioned before, I got to Jamestown at early in the morning and kind of enjoyed the quiet peacefulness of being away from everything.
Well, for some reason I thought Jamestown was still a town for some reason. I didn't realize that it was in ruins. So, what's the appeal of Jamestown anyway?
It's considered the birthplace of our nation, as it was the first location where the English landed and settled, and it is the first permanent English Settlement.
Granted, there's nothing here now, the only structure that still exists is an old church, and the church has been rebuilt several times. The tower of the church is the only structure that is from 17th century Jamestown.
Anyway, as soon as the gate opened, I found myself at the Glassblowers.
And I just watched them make this 'octopus bowl' for about thirty minutes, enthralled by the whole process. It might be the artist in me, I'm fascinated by different artistic techniques. And they are dressed to the period so they blow the glass just like they did back then.
I wanted that Octopus Bowl after it was done. I also wanted to get a good picture of it but I didn't want to get in their way by asking if they could pose with their work of art.
Besides, by the time I realized that they had finished, they put it in the cooling container and that was that.
Hmm. . .
Most of what Jamestown looks like now. There is a cool museum to check out (I am going to be museumed out after this trip)
Anyway, afterwards I went to the Jamestown Settlement, which is a re-inactment of how things were at that time, as well as a gallery of what life was like. Very cool, I enjoyed it muchly.
this was to give you an idea of how the indians lived, they had people cleaning skins and gardening and basically living as they lived at that time. Funny, some of them didn't really look indian.
Then there were the ships.
This is a replicate of the Susan Constant. It was cool. I liked.
I don't have a lot of pictures of me, because that would require me trusting my camera with a complete and total stranger, but every now and then, when I felt like they can't get far in case they decide to run, I asked if somebody could get a picture with me in it.
And sometimes I got pictures with the people who were in on the re-inactment. Or whatever it's called.
So this is apparetnly what Jamestown looked like before it crumbled away into nothing.
When being a goober and trying on various items they allow you to try on, it is wise to make sure you put on the adult sized items.
Why is there no longer a thriving community in Jamestown? Well, apparently it wasn't the greatest location due to lack of clean water, causing the inhabitants to starve to death the first couple of years and butcher everything in sight. 2/3s died. They managed to live alright until the late 1600's, and then decided to move to a more doable location. Like Williamsburg.
For some reason, I decided that pictures weren't that important in Williamsburg. Or I couldn't bring myself to spend $35 on a ticket to see whatever I wanted to when I spent five hours in Jamestown goofing around and checking things out and lost track of time. So I got to Williamsburg and by the time I figured out that if you want to go inside the historic buildings you had to buy a ticket, I didn't think it was worth it to spend that much money to only use it for two hours. So I stayed on the street and the shops. And forgot about my camera.
I didn't forget about the horses though.
I took a lot of pictures of the horses. Mainly because I could just get different angles. Looking back, I should have went up to the re-inactors and just started taking their pictures while they weren't looking or get some candids. I love those.
But I got some good ones of the horses. Figures.
I should have stuck around longer in Williamsburg. However, at the point I was at, there was nothing left to see unless I wanted to buy a ticket. And I decided I would check it out if I came back the next day. Alas, I didn't.
If you want to visit the triangle, give yourself plenty of time to see it, or else it isn't worth going. I would say two days to it. I was planning on possibly coming back to Williamsburg again the second day after Yorktown but decided to move on. There is a lot of things to do and I would like to enjoy the whole bit. Yorktown has a little more freedom in seeing things on your time, and Williamsburg to a point, you can wander about and the taverns are still open even after all the shops are closed, but Jamestown you are stuck with the hours they provide.
If I were to do it again, I would have done Yorktown and Jamestown in day one and Williamsburg the next.
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