Juniorbird.com

Since I’ve apparently “traveled”:http://juniorbird.com/archives/001619.html “about”:http://juniorbird.com/archives/001506.html “everywhere”:http://juniorbird.com/archives/001511.html “else”:http://juniorbird.com/archives/001509.html this summer, I thought I’d try going back home to Baltimore. Yes, the one in Maryland. Not to be confused with Boston or with Bangor (I’ve had it confused with both). What better city to introduce someone you care about than Charm City?
h3. Harborplace
The obvious place to start the tour was “Harborplace”:http://www.harborplace.com/, the center of Baltimore’s renaissance. After a much-needed lunch at famous tourist trap “Phillips Seafood”:http://www.phillipsfoods.com/, for various crab-containing foods, we visited the “Constellation”:http://www.constellation.org/. Now, I have no childhood memories of Phillips, which was far too tourist-y for any reasonable natives who were proud of their city, but the Constellation was a very happy play place for me and for my friends. One of the oldest ships still around, all geeky kids loved the history of the place.
But the Constellation has changed since I was there. It was, in my memories, a somewhat dingy, very old-looking late 18th-century frigate. Apparently, someone figured out it was a snazzy mid 19th-century warship, with an associated museum and informative inside signange. Trauma! But still deeply cool inside.
After the Constellation came the “Aquarium”:http://www.aqua.org/. Speaking of geeky youthful play memories! A few years ago, I went to the famous Boston Aquarium, and was very disappointed, but the National Aquarium lived up to my memories, with a ton of cool fish in informative displays and a wide range of different exhibits. The rainforest was all I’d remembered, and the shark tank was fun and scary. And the “Torsk”:http://www.usstorsk.org/ outside was deeply nerd-tech cool, even if we didn’t have time to go in.
Sadly, the return trip through the Pavilions included a small trauma too — all the fried dough joints were gone. Man, I could have used some of that with cinnamon and powdered sugar and honey and apples.
h3. Power Plant Live!
Suckered in by the ads on the hotel’s tourism channel, we went to the tourist-oriented “Power Plant Live”:http://www.usstorsk.org/ for drinks. The Havana Club served weak drinks and, despite the music, we were scared off by perhaps the worst Mojito ever. McFaddens had a great visiting live band from Colorado that sang a medly of the greatest hip-hop hits of the ’90s, set to a twangy country tune — and some of the sluttiest waitresses ever, not only did they flirt enough to make the place fun, they flirted enough to scare off some single women who weren’t getting access to the male customer contingent. Lucille’s had hot hip-hop and strong drinks. And I’m not sure I remember the rest.
h3. Home!
Visiting the old ‘hood was mandatory. We showed up in a pouring rain and took a break for lunch; I decided to swing by old neighborhood favorite “Alonso’s”:http://www.alonsos.com/index.html. What I got was a horrible, traumatic shock: Alonso’s was not the dingy, old, narrow, booth-filled dive with a big, padded leather-and-aluminum bar, a single, chain-smoking waitress who calls you “hon”, really slow service, and a lacrosse game on the TV; it was a snazzy restaurant with signed jerseys, several waitrons, and a bar featuring wine. Wine! Although I still had the signature one-pound burger. And it was tasty. But it was different! And there were people in it! At lunch! And an entire little neighborhood of shops around it! Damn development for taking what I remembered and making it better!
After the rain let up we walked around my house’s block. I tried to take pictures, but the humidity was still high enough that my camera lens fogged up as soon as I took off the cap. But, most everything was the same, except the house’s owner had chopped down the beautiful two-story rhododendron on one corner of the house, and the cherry tree in the middle of the lawn had grown to truly epic size.
h3. Fells Point
We drove back downtown down Maryland street, to see some of the ghetto, and then drove east to Fell’s Point past the projects to see some more. A walk past “Reptilian Records”:http://www.reptilianrecords.com/ and into the nooks and crannies of that old part of town gave me lots of fodder for my camera. We worked off the heat with a few “Natty Bohs”:http://www.nationalbohemian.com/, then got some Italian Gelato at historic Broadway Market. Fells Point, at least, is still a bohemian, alcoholic, beautiful, old part of town. Some things never change. Memo to self: raise child in a part of town that will never change, such as the red light district, the warehouse district, or deep underneath the bay.
h3. Dinner
We had two great dinners, one at The Brewer’s Art and the other at Red Maple. Both offered impressively tasty food and great, precise atmospheres. With great beer-based food at the former and tasty tapas at the latter, either restaurant would be a success in LA.
The two restaurants sat in Baltimore’s beautiful, European-feeling Mount Vernon district, with its gorgeous, artisanal old buildings. I’m proud of “Mount Vernon”:http://www.mvcd.org/. Your city sucks. That is all.
It’s incredible when reality lives up to your memories. Now, I just want to move back home to Charm City. That, and get the heck out of Fairfax, where Delta has put me up since they cancelled my flight for basically no reason at all and made me get up at 4:30am to make a morning flight on another airline. Damn Delta! Delta out of Baltimore!

I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and there’s a certain set of my fellow travelers who stand out. It’s not the people with kids, or the businessmen in their suits, or the harried wives dragging along irresponsible husbands who have no idea how to manage any complex task in their lives apart from golf, it’s not even the four rows of people behind me on an earlier flight who were obviously related because all four generations of these blondes had exactly the same hairstyle. No, it’s the people with the bags, those two large wheel-on bags that the rest of us check and that they, somehow, have the gumption to try to squeeze into the overhead compartments.
It’s not that I begrudge them their opportunity to take all of their bags on-board, rather than checking them; goodness knows, everyone wants to do that. It’s, rather, the impracticality of their hopes. The People With The Bags don’t have those little wheel-on bags, the cute ones you see at Costco and Target that fit, at most, three days worth of clothes. No, the People With The Bags have two hefty roll-ons, each containing ten days of clothes and a selection of footwear. Sometimes, one of the roll-ons will be a duffel bag the size of an entire overhead compartment; but the best shows come when one of the bag is a haphazardly-packed department store paper bag with handles. This bag always contains several framed pictures, snack foods, and, sometimes, fuzzy slippers.
Now, there is one advantage to the super-sized duffel bag: it can be squished and doubled over and contorted until it fits. Sometimes. The roll-on can’t, although the Person With The Bag will usually find space overhead for one of their two roll-ons. They’ll then wander the length of the aircraft, second bag in tow, trying to find another overhead compartment for their carry-on. When the flight attendant tries to check their bag, they’ll concoct complex rearrangements of other passengers’ luggage, moving that backpack to a second overhead compartment, the hat and coat to a third, and a camera from the second compartment to a fourth in order to make room for the backpack. The flight attendants just nod, smile, and then shoo The Person With The Bags back to their seat, where The Person tries, vainly, to shove the roll-on under the seat in front of them. Later, the flight attendant passes by and, noticing that The Person’s feet are squeezed entirely under their seat by the protruding bag, finally check the offending luggage.
Now, I’m going to board a new plane in the next ten minutes, and I’m looking forward to seeing the dance of The People With The Bags. Maybe some of them will succeed; but, as I’m stuck in a middle seat for the next five hours, I suspect the plane is full and all extra baggage will be sent below straight away.

Today I ate eight tacos al pastor. With yesterday’s two _tortas_, that makes this an all-Mexican street food (and tourism)weekend, which is a good weekend in my book. I just wish the fruit sellers hadn’t closed up shop yesterday before I could get some of that good-looking, fresh mango with chile powder.
h3. Tacos & The _Zocaló_
Today’s first three tacos were eaten at a stand along the street in the _Zocaló_, Mexico City’s historic downtown square. According to who you believe, the _Zocaló_ is either the second- or the third-largest open square in the world, and, let me say, it was plenty large for the political protest that was taking place there.
But I was more interested in what lay around the square. So I got up early — well, mid-morning — and hopped on the Metro. After paying the surprisingly small fare ($0.20), I somehow managed to take two lines in the correct direction, and to handle the transfer in between. I got out of the Metro directly in front of the Cathedral, an immensely large building with a somewhat disjointed architectural style, probably reflecting the long time period over which it was built.
After a quick jaunt through the cathedral, I went to see the Aztec _Templo Mayor_, the great temple of Tenochtitlan — and the source of much of the building material for the Cathedral. The excavated ruins were fascinating: the temple is made up of layers of massive stones and gravel, several generations of temple built over the previous generation, each with new carvings and some even with exquisite painted bas reliefs.
The exit from the _Templo Mayor_ led behind the red brick and stone _Palacio Nacional_. A few MPs, dressed in green uniforms with white braiding and spit-shined black shoes, stood in the entrance of an oaken door set in a maroon-painted wall; I couldn’t resist the colors, but, as soon as I began to set up the shot the soldiers waved me off. So, instead, I walked through the crowded streets behind the _Palacio_ and checked out the food vendors and the stalls selling various unexpected items (who would have thought that a pile of bras and thongs on a blanket in the middle of the road would be swarmed by women?). Slowly, I made my way back to the front of the Cathedral, where I found a taco stand with a big spit of _pastor_, surrounded by happy-looking Mexicans eating plates of tacos with cilantro and onion and salsa. So I ordered three and practically inhaled them, corn tortillas and all.
Suitably re-energized, I made my way into the _Palacio_. There, I was greeted almost immediately by a series of Diego Rivera murals (just like the Orosco mural in the dining hall at Pomona!). The _Palacio_ was free to enter and I was also free to walk around about half of it, seeing interesting exhibits on Mexico’s early constitutions and even good views into the spaces that Mexico’s government formerly used for its business.
Filled with culture and _pastor_, I headed home, only to be foiled by a cruel trick — the Mexicans put stops named “Cuauhetemoc” and “Chapultepec” on the same line. Looking for a stop that started and ended in a “c” I got off at the former, rather than the latter, and spent twenty minutes walking around before I figured out what was wrong. It was a pretty stop, however, and the nice lady at the ticket booth, who was listening to Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”, sold me a ticket for just $0.10.
h3. Tortas & Chapultepec
The day before, I had successfully made my way around the _Bosque de Chapultepec_, near my hotel in Polanco. I started out by visiting the _Monumento de los Niños Héroes_, a series of tall white columns comemorating the acts of six Mexican army cadets who, rather than surrendering to the invading American forces in 1847, cast themselves from the ramparts of the next place I visited, the _Castillo de Chapultepec_.
The _Castillo_ was originally built as a defensive installation, but was enlarged as a European-style château by that effete popinjay, Mexico’s brief, Austrian-born Emperor Maximilian. The effect is pretty humorous, featuring bright, tiled and plastered hallways leading to dark stone corridors with massive walls. The views, however, show why the location was chosen — you can see the whole city spreading around you from the ramparts/patios. The interior of the castle has fascinating displays, including portraits of all of Mexico’s Governors-General.
Upon leaving the _Castillo_, I discovered I was starving. I walked about a kilometer and a half before finally finding a stand that served something other than candy, chips, and _saladitos_. Loudly advertised by three women who appeared to have been hired for their ability to yell for hours without getting hoarse, this stand featured hot _tortas de milanesa_ served by perhaps the two surliest people I’ve ever seen in the food business. But the _tortas_ were selling fast, and, two of them later, I knew why. I sat and ate my _tortas_ while watching _voladores_, dressed in native clothes, climb to a platform atop a 100-foot-tall pole, tie themeselves to said platform, spin the platform and slowly lower themselves down. They looked like they were in those kids’ spinning carnival rides that feature cars shaped as characters like Dumbo, cars that become airborne as the ride spins, except there were no cars and the men were simply tied about their waists.
The rest of my afternoon was spent in the Museum of Anthropology, a stunningly comprehensive source of information about Native American groups in Mexico and America’s Southwest (and even further north — I learned that Aztlán may have been in present-day Washington). The entire museum was filled with incredible pottery pieces, some fabric, and highly-detailed displays showing native life, and, outside, there were replicas of many different ancient native ruins. I was particularly impressed by some masks, some miniatures of people, and some rather anthropromorphic ceramic animals. To say nothing of child-sized ceramic gods. Trapped in a sudden downpour, I even got a reasonably tolerable _torta_ in the Museum’s restaurant.
So, three _tortas_ and eight _tacos al pastor_ in two days. Plus some sights. Not a bad Mexico trip! Now I must get to bed, in preparation for my ridiculously early flight tomorrow morning.