It was a very Baltimore weekend at the Ledyard house-- highlights and lowlights below:
High: the Charm City hits the big time, getting featured in the NY Times "36 hours in..." travel column. I must have been sleepwalking when I gave the author a tour-- he hit all our favorite spots! Blue Moon Cafe, Walters Art Museum, the Helmand, Charles Theater, Brewer's Art, and the Cross Street Market-- read the full article here.
Low: we finally jumped on "The Wire" bandwagon and started watching the first season. Excellent television yes, but the Baltimore crime scene hits a little close to home when those boarded up row houses are a familiar site and our friends love joking about the "ghetto" (aka our surrounding neighborhood) or the flashing blue police lights encountered on the ride to our house. We live on a beautiful tree lined street, filled with nice people, sturdy 1940s row houses, and azaleas...and were woken up a few weeks back by the sound of gun fire followed shortly by the police chopper circling with its spotlight glaring in the windows. I feel caught between wanting to defend and promote Bmore as my newly adopted hometown, while staying in touch with the reality of a city which (despite all the lovely redevelopment) still has its share of problems.
High: a gorgeous afternoon in Annapolis watching the NCAA lacrosse quarterfinals-- yummy seafood lunch with lots of Carolina friends and plenty of beer, sailboats, ice cream cones, and quaint shops.
Low: the Heels lost to the evil empire by about a hundred goals-- and now those bastards get to come to Baltimore for the final four next weekend. Blast.
High: filled up the old kegerator with a solid Maryland brew-- Backfin Pale Ale. To quote our neighbor Katie (one half of our Baltimore twin couple, Katie and Joe, who also lent us season one of the The Wire): "Yum! This makes me want to pick some crabs right now! I think they put Old Bay in it."
If anyone's up for more lacrosse, Backfin brews, or special time in Baltimore-- all will be available again this weekend chez Ledyard. Don't let the Wire (or my mention of gunfire) scare you off :)
2 comments:
My sister in law worked in the Hopkins ER for a while. She had some wild stories about the walking dead. Baltimore has nice areas and not so nice areas and these are spread out all over the city.
Yeah, it is a pretty crazy city that way...one block west of us there are million dollar mansions, and two blocks north of us there's a burned out strip mall that my husband forbids me from going near because of car jackings and drug deals. Really extreme wealth and extreme poverty bumping right up next to each other.
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