A Baltimorean Excursion En-Route to DC

I've backdated this entry so the blog is chronologically accurate - I wrote it up after I got back as it was always going to be a big post! I didn't want to rush it out, and at the time I was a pre-occupied with what happened in Mexico! -Andy

I left my aunt and uncle’s place early Monday morning to get into Philadelphia early in order to start my journey south as soon as possible. A Greyhound ticket to Washington DC with an open stop off in Baltimore was $30, and asking the guy on the desk what to do for a few hours was given a big list of potential places to visit. I asked if he knew of The Wire, he told me it was his favourite show right before giving my strict instructions to stay on the right side of the tracks in a part jokey, part deadly serious manner. So I spent the next two and a bit hours sat in front of an elderly lady hacking her guts up, pausing on occasion to intermittently spit on the floor and shout, in what sounded like angry Chinese, into her phone. Not the most pleasant of journeys, but I kept myself entertained by playing the Avoid Rivers of Chunky(not ’Chinky’ as I genuinely mistyped first) Saliva game and tracking our progress using Google Maps on my BlackBerry. It sounds like a dull waste of time and battery, but never underestimate the satisfaction of being able to put a name to a cruddy town as you pass by. On arriving in Baltimore, I quickly found that contrary to what the Greyhound staff in Philadelphia had told me, the station wasn’t near the city centre at all. It was in fact a twenty minute and very infrequent bus ride away. Never mind. Of course sight seeing with a big, heavy backpack isn’t that easy, so I went inside the bus terminal to seek out a locker I could use for three or four hours. They didn’t have any. Instead, with the least enthusiasm humanly possible, they offered a $5 per hour luggage storage service. I didn’t fancy paying that much to such apathetic staff, so had the bright idea of seeking out Penn Station, the city’s Amtrak terminal, assuming they’d definitely have lockers at a fraction of the cost. So I searched for it put a marker on my Google Maps and hoped the bus went somewhere nearby. In retrospect I could have just asked the bus driver, but that would have spoilt the fun! Feeling everyone’s gaze as a skinny white boy with a backpack trying his hardest to blend in and not look lost, I sat near the front, following our route on my phone as subtly as possible. Fortunately we kept getting closer to the train station, and I managed to get off just a five minute walk away. Given, it was five minutes more toward the wrong side of the tracks and plenty of shady people threw me some not-quite-threatening, but not-quite-friendly stares - I just kept moving purposefully, attempting to look sort-of local.

It was about 1pm by the time I reached Amtrak, and upon asking very politely if they had any lockers was told flatly no. With such helpful customer service, I pressed and asked if I could store my heavy bag anywhere, taking it off and putting it down with a thud. “Are you an Amtrak ticket holder?”
“No, fraid not.”
“Well we can only hold the bags of Amtrak ticket holders.”
“Really?” - stepping up my British politeness - “Please, just for few hours, I want to explore your fine city!” - maybe a bit much.
“Okay, that’ll be $3,” in a thoroughly emotionless monotone.
“Thanks!”
“Psshh.”

After that delightful exchange I wanted to find out what was going on in Baltimore, so after buying a fridge magnet I asked the station gift shop assistant what was good to do in the city, to which he just shrugged. “Nothing at all?” Another shrug followed by a head shake. “Brilliant, thanks!”. Spying the transit police booth across the way, I figured cops must have some idea of what’s fun, especially if The Wire’s McNulty is any fictional character to go by. “Good afternoon, strange question, but I’m in Baltimore for a few hours and looking for something to do, anything you’d recommend?” Again, complete nonchalance. After a bit more prompting, all the while staring at his gun (actual weapon, not penis) as most Brits in the States find themselves doing, he half-arsedly pointed me in the direction of dull-sounding museum at the other end of town. Thanking him sarcastically, (but not too sarcastically, still clocking that gun) I walked out of the station just laughing to myself like a total mental. I didn’t really care about sight-seeing, I just felt so free at that point it was fantastic. Happy to be alive totally unrestricted, I strolled - almost swaggered - in the complete opposite direction to the Museum of Boring and saw a wonderful old clock tower in the distance and felt like taking a closer look. A fine example of some architectural style, I’m sure. While taking some photos I noticed two girls standing outside the entrance, one humouring the other’s smoke break, and so took the opportunity go and as some questions. “Hello! Sorry to disturb you, but just wondering what this place was…”
“It’s an art studio, used to be railway station,” one of the girls politely informed me, the other immediately asking where I was from and what I was doing here, leading to a very pleasant ten minute conversation, during which I was given a guided tour of the many splendid works in progress. She then wished me happy travels and left me to my own devices, not before reminding me that I’m an international student at the Maryland Institute College of Art should security give me any hassle. After thanking her I spent another few minutes taking in not only the art but also the amazing architecture of The Mt Royal Station (I had to cheat and look it up), before heading out for a wander in west Baltimore.

The following section may contain several references to HBO’s The Wire, so anything doesn’t make sense, please blame it on that. Unless of course you’re a fan of the show, in which case I’m talking bollocks.

Well I say west Baltimore, but it wasn’t quite the deepest, darkest drug ghettos of The Wire. Still, I walked for a good twenty minutes and went into a supermarket that had a cop permanently stationed by the tills. When he answered his phone with the words “Sheeeeeeeit woman!” it was a real strain not to burst out laughing. But as the only white person around, I was very aware I could be perceived as being horribly racist - and if there’s one thing you don’t want to do in west Baltimore, it’s that. Oh, and sell heroin on someone else’s corner. So after stocking up on nutritionally worthless food, and not seeing any signs of organised drug gangs with witty banter and pumping tunes, I decided to head back toward the Maryland Institute College of Art to have a nosy round the rest of their campus. An interestingly angular, all-glass building, signposted as The Brown Center seemed to demand further investigation - I just hoped it wasn‘t a poo museum or a see-through toilet. It wasn’t either. Just more art. I went in and saw tons more paintings and sculptures, including a gigantic papier mache pig which actually looked far less ridiculous than it sounds. Feeling thoroughly cultured, I left and walked toward the downtown area of the city. I’d gone about a minute before I spied a dingy-looking bar across the street, and suddenly an afternoon beer or two seemed an attractive option. Half expecting the music to stop at the sight of an outsider (given my previous less-than-friendly interactions with Baltimoreans), I was pleasantly surprised by the welcoming atmosphere. Definitely dingy, but not in a bad way. Taking a seat at the bar, I asked for a local beer and got poured a pint (or thereabouts) by Mick, The Mt Royal Tavern’s charismatic and thoroughly hilarious barman. So one pint quickly turned to two as I talked about my trip to the already quite sauced locals. Amazingly, Mick bought my second beer and told me to get it down me - I gladly obliged hoping to Christ this wasn’t part of some elaborate From Dusk Till Dawn-style get-outsiders-drunk-then-rob-them scheme. Oh and turn into vampires and bite them too. But it wasn’t. He’d selected the Pabst Blue Ribbon, what he described as “a working man’s beer - It‘s flat, doesn‘t taste great, but it does the job!” My beer snobbery drained away as I realised that‘s all that mattered after hard day‘s work. Two beers turned to six or seven over the next four hours, and a great time was had as I chatted to the remarkably eclectic crowd. “Yeah, we get all walks of life in here - doctors, lawyers, factory workers, students, lowlifes, junkies - but everyone just gets along,” Mick told me after insisting on my buying me another brew. It’d got quite busy by then, and as I’d professed my love of The Wire earlier, he said “Hey, you liked the Wire right?”
“Yeah!”
“Well this guy worked on the show, you wanna meet him?”
“Yeah!”
Mick beckoned over a grey-haired goatie-wearing gentleman and informed him I was a fan from across the pond. He was wearing his embroidered “HBO: The Wire Season Five - CREW” fleece and it turned out he’d done the electronic effects on the fifth season, including a big pyrotechnics showpiece he was very proud of. Unfortunately I’d only seen the season one at that point, so regrettably couldn’t say ‘great job!’ or something equally pathetic. I asked him a load of questions I can’t even remember now, but it was all quite exciting. After a bit more bar-mingling It’d somehow got to 7.30pm, and really was time to leave. Saying bye-bye to the several new acquaintances I’d made and would lose the second I left, I found the Wireman to wish bid him adieu too. “I was about to leave too, you need a ride anywhere?”
“Errr I’d hate to impose…”
“No imposition, where you heading?”
“Well, I gotta pick up my bag from the Amtrak then get to the Greyhound…don’t worry about it.”
“That’s fine, it’s dark.”
That settled that then! After collecting my backpack from another indifferent member of the station staff, the Wire bloke asked if I was hungry and proceeded to insist he buy me some dinner. Fine. At this point I’m quite aware it seems a bit seedy, but I assure you he was being a genuine nice guy, not a sleazy molester. Another beer and an amazing large pizza later, he asked if I’d mind heading back to his house round the corner for a minute because his wife would never believe he’d been out with an English fan of The Wire. “Sure, of course!” Now again, it wasn’t sinister, I’m aware it’s beginning to sound a bit rapey, but it was all aboveboard! His wife was lovely and runs a salon… furnished with old props from the show. If only I didn’t hate getting my hair cut so much, oh, and paying a few hundred quid in airfares every time, I’d definitely go there. Anyway, without much more ado, I was taken to the Greyhound terminal just in time for the 9.15pm bus, feeling really quite drunk and not looking forward to navigating the capital’s Metro system an hour later!

Navigate I did, somehow, despite being woken up by the Greyhound screeching to a stop when we reached Washington DC. Walking about three or four deserted and poorly-lit blocks south to Union Station sobered me up a bit as I avoided several questionable locals, getting my customary half-drunken stomp-on. , I managed to get onto the Red Line train toward Tacoma without any issues, not massively looking forward to my couch that the Hilltop Hostel‘s Eddie had promised me for ten bucks over the phone for lack of an actual bed. But a bed was a bed even if it was a couch, and I wasn’t expecting that much sleep anyway due to my impeding Mexico flight the next morning. After my (also quite customary) failure to see the hostel right in front of me and subsequently searching up and down the street for five minutes before ending up precisely where I started, Eddie was pleased to announce there was a bed after all, and an extra $14 was now required. Sort of hooray! After an uneventful night, I awoke around 5.40am, intending to leave just after six to arrive to Dulles for eight: a whole two hours before my departure. And that’s exactly what happened. Via an Egg McMuffin and pinching several copies of America’s finest news source, The Onion so as to look cultured and satirically aware to whichever Cancun-bound craaaaaaazy college girls happened to be sat next to me on the plane. Or, as it turned out, to David - a smug, middle-aged stock-broking-analyst-banking-prick from Boston who couldn‘t stop talking about his ‘shrewd-’ cocking ‘-investments’. Tosser. Oh well, I was certain Mexico would be a giggle and had no idea where I’d be heading after that. Figuring as long as I didn’t get robbed of most of my stuff, I’d be guaranteed fun times in Spring Break central! Wooo!