The Joys & Juxtapositions of Being A Tourist in Your Own Town (Or: ‘Savannah Is A Necropolis’ and Other Skeletons)
Face-to-face with the giant bear skeleton, I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake. Then came several dozen wasted bachelorettes wearing satin sashes, and I almost ran away screaming. But I was already committed to this adventure, and besides, I wasn’t alone.
Playing hostess in the Hostess City brings a certain pressure. Everyone always says they’re going to visit, but I get flummoxed when someone actually shows up. What’s on the agenda? What’s the ideal mix of touristy essentials and local treasures? How to present a truncated totality of Savannah that isn’t Disneyfied or depressing?
It’s especially challenging if your guest is a seasoned traveler, in this case an IT professional who has long taken advantage of remote work to see the world, inspiring major Facebook FOMO from Mexico, Austria, Cuba, and various swanky cruise ships until COVID grounded her. Before all that, however, she was my high school friend who had the biggest hair and best debate skills, and later in college, convinced me to join a sorority for a hot minute before our penchant for drinking beer in public fountains got the chapter temporarily kicked off campus. (No need to claim us, Zeta Tau Alpha.)
She also happens to be named Jessica. To the confusion of many a slack-jawed frat boy, we also palled around with two other Jessicas, wreaking havoc all over Tucson like a nerdier version of Heathers, without the murder.
With our ranks now cut in half and our age more than doubled, we probably wouldn’t leave broken hearts and broken bottles in our wake, but it was now my responsibility to show off our city’s singular charms and to see to it that the Jessicas could still slay.
Jessica flew into Savannah Int’l on a late Saturday night after two weeks in the Florida Keys, her COVID cabin fever already in the rearview. Faced with making a grand first impression and the dilemma of finding a decent dinner past 9:30 pm around here, I made the wacky decision to go Full Dinosaur. I’d read plenty about Plant Riverside’s prehistoric glitz and navigated its perimeter on several occasions, giving me an admittedly uninformed opinion about its over-the-top opulence and lopsided economic impact. I had yet to actually visit the inside, so this was going to be a side of Savannah new to both of us.
In the lobby, Jessica and I encountered the aforementioned Ice Age bear fossil and gaggles of satin-swathed bachelorettes—better known in these parts as “woo girls” for their prolonged, high-pitched mating calls—and of course, the outrageous piéce de detestance, the giant chromed dinosaur suspended from the ceiling of the former Georgia Power coal refinery.
“Wow, I’ve never seen that before,” Jess murmured. I figured if my tour guide skills didn’t impress her during the rest of her trip, she’d been rendered speechless at least once.
We agreed that sipping mojitos under the human taxidermy of the Baobab Lounge felt unsettling but that Savannah Tequila Company’s burritos suiza were excellent—and two girls from Arizona ought to know. A swing through the Electric Moon Skytop Lounge and another ogle at the massive sparkling geodes confirmed what I’d suspected all along: That Plant Riverside offers a sensational, high-level experience that seems galaxies away from the city where most of us live and work, though we can’t argue that its dazzling neon glory has upleveled the riverfront forever, or as long as late-stage capitalism holds.
And I’m not mad about it—especially when it’s serving piping hot flautas at 11pm. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had spent a few hours somewhere other than Savannah, and that’s what Jessica came to see. So we fixed that by capping off the night at Pinkie Masters, where she added her signature to the bathroom wallpaper. Sadly, the fountain at Orleans Square is currently drained, foiling any sorority shenanigan do-over plans, but she did tick off a box on the essential Savannah bucket list by enjoying a late night snack of boiled peanuts from Fancy Parker’s.
“These are not terrible!” she announced with surprise, earning me another notch on her world-class traveler belt.
With the flashiest attraction in town out of the way, I felt free to show her my favorite ‘hood. Sunday in Starland did not disappoint: Though Starlandia was closed, we still barged in on Clinton Edminster painting new shelves and had a good guffaw at Graveface Records & Curiosities over how much the taxidermied badger looked like our high school hair. I also scored Loverboy’s second album for a dollar; if you didn’t bang your head to “Lucky Ones” in the 80s, you aren’t a Jessica.
Thankfully, Starland seems to be maintaining its gritty local vibe—a family crew was painting over graffiti for a new club going in next to Sey Hey’s, and I don’t know why anyone would wait in mile-long lines for ice cream when Starland Strange serves Rocky Road in a salted corn cone. Then it was off to Savannah Gay Kickball in Forsyth Park, a weekly drop-in game where allies of all abilities are welcome and Jess pitched an admirable game.
“I haven’t played kickball since seventh grade!” she laughed as I patted myself on the back for providing a peak middle school P.E. experience without the trauma.
The next morning, I abdicated guide duties to a professional. Savannah native Bonnie Rae Terrell of Bonnie Blue Walking Tours squired us through the centuries, expertly walking backwards on the cobblestones as she filled in the gaps in our public school Revolutionary War knowledge and pointed out the slave history hidden in plain sight on Bay Lane. She gave us a good giggle when she deadpanned that Franklin Square was named for Benjamin and not Aretha.
As we marveled at how the architecture has withstood so many tenants, hurricanes, wars, and financial miseries, here came a trolley full of woo girls shrieking around City Market.
“The thing that finally brings Savannah down will be bachelorette parties,” sighed Bonnie.
Later that evening, Jessica had booked us for The Creepy Crawl Haunted Pub Tour. This would not (para)normally be something I would choose to show a guest to our city since I am often the person heckling such groups. But Jessica swears by drunken ghost tours as one of her favorite activities when she visits a new place, and who am I to argue with someone with more stamps in her passport than a Panamax cargo ship?
Still, I was concerned that the historical truths would be watered down like a St. Patrick’s Day cocktail. However, our tour guide kept it real. There was no silliness about goblins peeking through the windows, and as we traipsed from the Six Pence Pub to 1790 past Colonial Cemetery, he reminded us that these streets were rife with bones buried beneath. He summed up with a slight slur: “Savannah is a necropolis!” which is a stone cold fact as well as Reason #27 why you shouldn’t wear flip flops downtown.
Savannah might be a City of the Dead, but the Jessicas’ new motto is that you’re not truly living until you’ve eaten jalapeño poppers at McDonough’s with some kids from Nebraska at 1am. I’d pay for those fried late night snacks later, but a little acid reflux is worth seeing new sides of your city and finding that you still have the fortitude to stay awake past 10pm. It’s even more special when you’re with someone who knew you back when you used to crimp your bangs into a shape resembling a stuffed badger and rescued you that time you left your car in the desert after you ate too many psychedelic mushrooms.
Determined to fill up Jessica with as much Savannah as possible before her flight home, we managed to squeeze in some delicious soul food from the Masada Café at the United House of Prayer for All People and a visit to the Ships of the Sea Museum, both time and money well-spent whether you have guests in town or not. Somewhere in there was a hysterical peruse through the American Prohibition Museum, again not my idea but an unexpected delight for its accurate history and the legit French 75s in the speakeasy.
On the ride to the airport, Jessica couldn’t stop gushing about Savannah’s charms and my hostessing prowess *blush*. We talked about how we’d see each other in a few weeks when the family heads to Arizona for a visit, but also how we should plan a trip to some other city where we could stumble and slay as tourists together.
“Hamburg is awesome. What about Dubrovnik? And Havana! You’d love it,” she burbled, already contemplating her next adventure.
I told her I’d think about it, though my lifestyle tends to be more anchor, less jetset. Besides, I don’t think any of those places are ready for the Jessicas.
On the wagon this week! ~ JLL
Heya! Won’t you consider subscribing to Savannah Sideways? It’s free, but if you pay me there are treats…
I feel cheated out of a picture of teh retro Jessicas and their bangs!
I am always in a quandary on how to "impress" sophisticated travelers in our town, too. Then I remember that towns like Charleston have been chain banged to the nth degree. I say now, fuck it, lets go to Lone Wolf and get hammered. Remembering that my Nor'Easter friends grew up with tiny neighborhood bars and love them, too.