And...more Baltimore

When I left off, it was Monday and I had bought my brand new Orioles hat at the Camden Yards shop.

At this point, I was ready to head back to the hotel after all the walking I'd done. So I trudged back, bought a coffee from the Starbucks on Presidents Street across from the Marriott, and rested in our 23rd floor hotel room. (I need to make a correction from my previous post: I did not, in fact, get coffee prior to my excursion because the order ahead didn't seem to be working on the app and heaven forbid I should actually have to go IN the Starbucks to order. And yes, it's also incredibly lame that I'm addicted to a corporate chain like Starbucks in the first place. I will own this terrible personality flaw). 

I spent the afternoon alternating between napping and reading the new book about Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run album (Tonight in Jungleland).

Here's another digression: the Marriott is on Aliceanna Street. Aliceanna has to rank as one of my favorite street names ever. I assumed it was named after two women named Alice and Anna, but it was named after ONE woman named Aliceanna, (Aliceanna Webster Bond).

Baltimore's roots as an English colonial port city are palpable, particularly along the harbor and the Patapsco River. The street names (Thames, Lancaster, Fleet, Bond) are all English. The narrow streets, rowhouses, and Georgian houses and commercial buildings in Fells Point remind me a bit of York, England (having just visited York in June). If one concentrates hard enough when looking out towards the river from the piers, one can almost picture the noise and smells of when Fells Point was bustling with activity. (Now the riverside in Fells Point is luxury hotels, trendy boutiques and restaurants, and folks sitting on benches looking out at the water or on their phones. On Wednesday morning, we encountered a young couple who had just become engaged on the pier. The groom-to-be had placed a long rug at the end of the pier held down only by framed photos of himself and the bride-to-be, along with a sign reading "Marry me." L and I gave them their space as they sipped on glasses of wine. But then a strong gust of wind from the river lifted up the rug and sent the framed photos flying and then shattering upon landing back on the concrete pier. I tried to help them pick up their pictures but they had it sorted quickly. They laughed and took it in stride. I congratulated the couple and the bride-to-be said that nothing (not even some broken picture frames) could ruin the best day of her life. Young love and a relaxing stroll in Fells Point. It doesn't get much better.