Not Much to Update Today

There isn’t much to report on today since most of the day was spent recovering from last night. I had an educational time at the bar, Maxie’s, last night and learned the differences between fire trucks and fire engines. One of them contains water in the truck and has a ladder. Guess which!

The site of my shenanigans last night and some pretty good pizza!

I have to mail some postcards and do some packing since my flight is at 8:30 tomorrow morning and I have to be up by 5:30 to get picked up by a shuttle. It’s my last day in Baltimore and I’ve had so much fun with my sister!

A Day in Inner Harbor

Day two in Baltimore started around 10:00AM. It’s early considering the three-hour time difference but I had a lot of sleep and I felt pretty good. We headed into Inner Harbor, which is the more tourist-attraction-y part of Baltimore. We had lunch at Phillip’s. It’s a seafood restaurant that does a summer time special. They open up their outdoor patio and set up umbrellas and picnic tables so it’s a whole outdoor cookout feel. It boasts fresh crab and you can actually see them sorting the live crabs on the side.

We ordered a steamed crab and shrimp pot along with mussels. I think we were a little less hungry than we anticipated but the food wasn’t bad. I didn’t love the blue crab but it’s a Baltimore thing so I had to try it. The seasoning was delicious and the drawn butter was to die for but pounding the blue crab with the mallet made me feel like I was desecrating the poor thing after it was dead – with all its friends watching…

After lunch, we walked around the harbor and took a look at the different shops. There was a farmer’s market and some larger malls. My sister bought a few things but I think I’m going to hold off on buying things until I figure out what I need for work.

There isn’t too much to see at Inner Harbor so the trip was short. We headed home and rested up before dinner and had Korean. We’re going to head out in a bit to go to a local bar called Maxie’s. The days pass so quickly!

Hey There, Baltimore!

After a red eye flight and then a shorter flight on a old, clunky plane, I finally arrived in Baltimore to see my sister! She’s come to visit me several times while I’m was in college so I thought it might be nice to repay the favor. It was perfect timing since I’m starting work next week and this is kind of the last of my summer vacation. It’s also another thing on my 22 Things list! I have a good feeling that I’ll be able to get through my list.

Go Bears!

After getting to Baltimore, I was starving for something to eat. The last I ate was before my flight so I was due for a meal. Unfortunately the crepe place my sister wanted to take me to was closed so we headed back to campus and had salads at Freshii’s. It was pretty good and the produce was all very fresh. After lunch, I wanted to take a quick nap to make up for the sleep I didn’t get on the plane.

After waking up, my sister took me on a quick tour of campus where we took a look at different buildings. I really like the cohesive nature of JHU’s undergrad campus. All the buildings are the same brick material with modern furnishings. Their campus is really nicely kept up and it’s really different from the kind of eclectic, modge-podge architecture of Berkeley. The coolest thing was walking into their main hall and seeing the seal of Cal in there. Apparently, JHU’s first president was also one of the first presidents of Cal!
For dinner, we went to a little diner called Paper Moon Diner. The décor was a little bit creepy: there were all sorts of old dolls and vintage toys and Pez dispensers but the thing that really put me off was the number of mannequins that were in the diner. They ranged from colored ones with huge false eyelashes to ones that were just in the nude and seemed to stare at you. They certainly gave the diner a very particular feel but I couldn’t help but feel that something was looking at me while I was eating. There's also a mannequin in the bathroom, which makes you very uncomfortable while you're doing your business. The food was pretty good; I had potato pancakes and a prosciutto caprese sandwich. I’m not sure if it merits a Yelp review but Paper Moon definitely has a lot of character.

Scary mannequins.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out with some of the sister’s friends and just relaxing. It’s only 10:30PM here, which means it’s about 7:30PM Pacific Time but I’m already pretty pooped. I think I might just watch a few episodes of a TV show and curl up in bed for the rest of the night so that I’m energized for tomorrow!

Off to Baltimore!

I’ll be flying to Baltimore tonight and I won’t be able to write till tomorrow! Between the time difference and the red-eye flight, I’m not sure when my next post will be but I’ll try to have something lined up for tomorrow morning. Thanks for reading and I’ll talk to you when I’m on the East Coast!