Tuesday, June 02, 2009
So They Say
Alright, I just got back from the little ghostie tour and I’ve gotta say, I’m a bit disappointed. The implication is that they will take us to a few places that are known to be haunted to see if we can find anything. Apparently I got on the wrong tour because what I just got back from was taking us around to various places and telling us ghost stories. Hardly the same thing. I guess some of the tours are different so perhaps the front desk misunderstood what tour I was taking this evening because the tour his girlfriend went on was not the tour I just went on.
We all got on a trolley and went to the old Spanish hospital. Maybe it’s because I’m used to the heat but I didn’t find it hot inside. See, we all gathered in to a room and the lady shut the door so that the only light came from a single candle. She then proceeded to tell a ghost story and what ghosts were around the place. I felt little cool breezes every so often but it was coming from the air conditioner vents above us.
Regardless, a girl sitting next to me got up in the middle of the lady’s story, opened the door and went outside. About 5 minutes after that, another girl standing against another wall just dropped to the floor. She totally fainted and hit the ground hard. She came to not even 1 minute later and was a little unclear as to what was going on. She said that all she knew was that she was listening to a story and the next thing she knew, everyone was staring at her. She may have been a little hot or she locked her knees while she stood or something, who knows. But she was fine.
Now, at the exact same time that the story teller lady was tending to the girl who fainted, a guy went outside and came back in almost immediately. Seems the girl who had gone outside earlier had also fainted. Problem was, she fainted outside and smacked her head on the concrete and was laying out there for a good 5-8 minutes before anyone knew what had happened. She apparently smacked her head so hard that an ambulance was called to tend to her. This cut the first part of our tour short, mid story and we were rushed off to the next spot as the tour group behind us was waiting to go in to the hospital for their ghost story.
Yah, it’s a little weird that two girls fainted but I don’t think it had anything to do with spirits.
We got back on to the trolley and were taken to the Old Drugstore. Everything was going fine, story telling was fun but then a couple of the tourists, guys, middle aged idiots, decided to start making noise. I mean, trying to make creepy noises. As in, they were banging on things trying to make people believe there were spirits doing it. It was so damn obvious who was doing it even if it was dark in the rooms. Totally destroyed the atmosphere. Oh, also, forgot to mention, in the first room, the hospital, someone’s cell phone went off and they did nothing to turn it off. They just let it ring and ring and ring until the caller finally gave up. At that point, many people started taking their cell phones out and turning them off because it was fucking annoying and, once again, destroyed the atmosphere.
Story time over in the drug store, we went out to look at the cemetery. As everyone was turning to go after flashing their cameras over and over and over again to the point you couldn’t see a damn thing in the dark, I hung back just a bit. As I was turning, I happened to see something standing in the cemetery. Like, a person. Like a person with a hoodie sweatshirt on just staring at us. Like I had to keep looking to see if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. And it kept being a person with a hoodie sweatshirt on and no one else was seeing it. So I tried to make it look like a headstone cause obviously that must be what it is and my eyes were playing tricks on me especially after all the fucking flash photography in the dark but it kept looking like a person standing there wearing a hoodie sweatshirt. Which would also be stupid because people in the 1800s didn’t have hoodie sweatshirts. I decided that I wanted to see something so bad, I just saw something when it probably was a headstone. The graves are above ground so it would be easy to misunderstand what I was seeing in the dark.
Anyway, after that we were off to the Old Jail. I had been there earlier in the day and had heard the story about the Charlie Powell guy so I was a little bored hearing it again. And, of course, once again, douche bag tourists started banging on metal trying to freak everyone out until the tour guide called them out on it. In a nice way, of course but she did call them out. Everyone was then escorted in to a holding area and the lady had her hand on the gate as they filed in, indicating that she was going to close the door. Fuck! That! I walked back out so that I was on the outside of the holding area while everyone else got closed in. She then left us to mull around and listen to some audio of “prisoners” screaming about rats and things like that.
I had my back to the stairwell watching everyone in the holding cell when all of a sudden, from the stairwell rushed a figure in an inmate outfit that made me half scream. Don’t fucking rush in like that. It doesn’t matter if I’m on a ghost tour or not, that shit startles the crap out of me every time. The good thing is that as he rushed in to the door he was yelling so his yelling drowned out my half scream. I think only he noticed.
Anyway, he was playing the role of Charlie Powell and that story was told again, we were then brought down to the “gallows” and as he was standing under it, talking to us about it, the trap door flew open. He ran off and that was the end of the tour. We piled back on to the trolley to go back to the starting point.
Totally. Gay.
Of course I didn’t expect to see anything but I thought we were actually going to try looking for things and, oh, I don’t know, be fucking quiet, waiting to see if anything would happen. Instead it was just a story telling tour that is done at night to make it seem scarier. Which it totally was not.
I’ll have to look around and find out if any tour actually does that. Like I said, the front desk guy said his girlfriend did a tour like that so there has to be one. It sure as hell wasn’t the one I was on, that’s all I know.
Yes, it was entertaining but it was not worth $26. I’m trying not to sound like an asshole tourist but I did read the brochure and it did imply something different than what we got. But, whatever. My time here in St. Augustine is coming to a close.
I don’t know if I saw enough of the town. I spent my entire time in the old historic district and it’s interesting, of course but it’s not something I think I would do again. The rest of the town offers stuff to do along the beaches and ocean that I can get at any beach town so I guess I may not come back this way. I heard a lot of nice things about St. Augustine and for the most part, yah, it was nice but again, not something I would desire to do again.
At least see it once, kids.
