Savannah!

Thursday was our first actual day in Savannah. After our long drive from New Orleans on Wednesday, we decided to sleep in a little the next morning and start the day a little later since we didn't have anything specific scheduled. We drove into downtown Savannah, about a half hour away from Jana's aunt's home in Richmond Hill. After scrounging for a place to park, the four of us walked around for a while, passing by little souvenir shops and restaurants along the river. It was a beautiful day, not too humid, and the breeze from the river added the perfect touch. We then walked a few blocks into the city, exploring a few of the main streets, one of them called Broughton Street, which had a collection of both locally owned shops and larger chains. By the time we walked up and down a few streets, it had was around 2:30, so we stopped in a small park to eat the sandwiches we brought along with us.

Once we finished, the two of us walked around the downtown area some more, taking some footage of the city and walking into a few stores. Unfortunately, for the stores we walked into, such as Shirts-N-Stuff and Savannah's Candy Kitchen, the owners either weren't available to speak with us or the store was too busy, so we weren't able to get any specific interviews. On a side note, the free samples of pralines at Savannah's Candy Kitchen were excellent - free and tasty! But from what we could notice, the stores were doing quite well, and we felt that the reasons for this are similar to those we discovered in New Orleans, Cleveland, and Chicago: the location of the store, the customer service, and keeping the local quality of the community. Also, we noticed that what Heidi had told us several days ago during our conversation held true in Savannah - the locally owned stores and the chains were very evenly mixed in with each other, and we noticed that this could be an aspect of the city that helps with its success. It gives the consumers some options of how they want to spend their money, and the chains provide jobs while the local shops provide personality. After looking around downtown, we found a frozen yogurt place and sat down to work on our documentary for a while. We have so much footage to sort through, so this could take a while... I guess it's a good thing we aren't heading up to New York City after Charleston anymore. We ended our day downtown at about 6 and drove back to Richmond Hill for dinner. Jana's aunt has been so kind to allow us to eat basically all our meals at her house, which has really helped us out financially on the trip. Thursday was a very nice and relaxing break from our very busy, long, and jam packed days in New Orleans, although we got a great feel for the city and made progress on our documentary.