Redsoxchickie: Just This Side of Stalking

Pulled Pork, Serbian Death Metal and the Hustler Club: Baltimore Has It All!!! My trip to Camden Yards will be a separate story, but for the non-baseball events, here’s what I learned while I visited the “Fenway South”…

I hate flying. People who enjoy flying also take vacations where they enter triathlons, they’re just sadists. That said the flights weren’t so bad, we took Southwest and on the way down there the crew was funny and sarcastic. When we landed the flight attendant got on the P.A. and said “ok, now get out!” I can get behind an airline like that. The way home we had the opposite, a business only crew which was kind of a bummer, but at least it was smooth sailing.

Baltimore is in fact part of “the South” as evident by the 90+ degree temperatures with 99% humidity, there fact that you can get pulled pork just about everywhere, and the fact it can take you 20 minutes to get a coffee at Dunkies with only one person in line in front of you. Between the slow, laid back way of life and the fact I would never move within 500 miles of a conglomerate of Red states, all people south of Pennsylvania can sleep easier at night knowing I will never be a permanent resident.

When getting a cab from the airport, make sure your cabbie is not listening to Serbian death metal on the radio. I felt like we were either on a “Homcide” tour or I was about to be a victim of a homicide.

Pulled pork is everywhere!!!! And its not just pork people, they have pulled chicken, pulled beef, and I’m sure if I looked hard enough I would have found a pulled tofu/soy sandwich. Why is everything pulled? Can’t we leave a good pork loin alone every once and a while?

I don’t care how tired you are, when you go out for lunch in Baltimore, drink 6 cups of coffee (that will take you half a day to get), chew tin foil or snort smelling salts, do whatever it takes to be alert in the daytime or else you’ll end up having what happened to me, happen to you…We got into Baltimore early Friday afternoon, so we went to ESPN Zone for lunch. We’re all pretty tired because we were up late the night before and were up early to catch our flight so we just plop down in a booth. I’m looking around but not really focusing on anything. I see the two tables across from us and I see two guys sitting MAYBE 5 feet from us, and I’m just kinda staring at these guys, but not focusing. Those guys leave and our waitress comes over. She sees our Red Sox wardrobe and proceeds to tell us that Bobby Keilty and Clay Buckholtz were the two guys I was staring at. That was our only close encounter for the entire weekend….I am embarrassed and ashamed of myself to this day. Although for a brief moment I thought about stealing one of their leftover fries to bring back with me which really would have cemented my place in the stalker hall of fame.

We managed to find the Red Light District by accident on our way back from Little Italy. Who knew it would be smack dab in the middle of the city? There were peep shows, strip clubs and a Hustler club, and as one doorman informed us, they do in fact welcome couples….(shudder)

Right now, Baltimore is the equivalent of Boston undergoing a Joan Rivers facelift, its in the middle of a complete overhaul. Most places are shiny and new looking, like the inner harbor area and a lot of the hotel in that area. The “little Italy” area seemed new too, almost like it was a set on a movie lot. And from our death metal cab ride, when I was staring out the window praying our cabbie didn’t kill us, I noticed even more new buildings going up. It’s very odd when you see homeless people in front of shiny buildings.

Baseball aside, the highlight of the trip was our hotel bartender, who is one of the few I’ve come across that didn’t stare at me blankly when we asked for baby Guinness shots and he was very personable. Other than that, the hotel was ok, except for the fact no one who worked there seemed to know we were actually staying there since we had employees knocking on our door every few hours wondering if the room was occupied.

Overall I highly recommend a weekend trip to Baltimore, just try to avoid it when it so hot you sweat more than Lindsay Lohan before a drug test.