Blogs from Baltimore, Maryland, United States, North America

One thing that I learned early in my adjusting career is that every state produces wine, some good some bad. Lots of bad to find the nuggets of good. I’ve probably written about our wine tastings, well I try to buy wine from wherever I am for the next wine tasting. And so it is here in Maryland, I figured that if Virginia wines are good then Maryland must be ok too. I’d heard about a wine festival on TV, advertised that lots of Maryland Wineries would be there, lots of food and crafts. I thought it might be fun to do a wine tasting ourselves, eat some good food and buy some Christmas Presents at the craft show. As it turned out we were really late as I had claims in DC. Dolly went sightseeing ... read more

We had a lazy start to the day and Stacy was our tour guide to the sights and delights of Baltimore, what a lovely city, the harbour area was really pretty and we walked around and over to the old area with all its little cobbled streets and original houses etc. We heard the news from 1814 from the town crier!! And then potched around some of the quirky little shops before catching the water taxi back over to the harbour area. We then watched fudge being made (which involved lots of audience participation, singing and jokes) but didn’t get any as Howard was too tight to pay for it! We then managed to buy a sat nav for when we hire the car and we were all knackered so went back to Stacy’s for a ... read more

This morning started off with a breakfast of granola bars and milk as the hotel did not have complimentary breakfast. The full size refrigerator came in handy to keep a gallon of milk that we bought yesterday. After breakfast, we walked to our next hotel (just a few blocks away) and dropped off our luggage. The hotel hopping was necessary because of the various deals that popped up over the last month--sometimes you can only find certain days on sale. Our second stay is at the Mount Vernon Hotel near Baltimore's Washington Memorial. This was an exceptional deal as I was able to take advantage of Expedia's Best Price Guarantee . They had the hotel for $104.30/night, and it was $104.29 at Priceline. Because of this 1 cent difference, Expedia gave me a $50 voucher towards ... read more

Well apparently Baltimore is where "The Wire" is set. And apparently the series is all about guns and drugs etc. There is not much we can say about this, but the outskirts of the city definitely reflect that sort of environment. It's hard to judge though, because we didn't even get off the coach to experience the city. So we'll leave it at that :)... read more

In preparing to “GO”, I had many people telling me just how different Ethiopia was going to be compared to America…. And believe me, I saw the differences….. I saw the INTENSE poverty compared to our INTENSE wealth….. I saw their pollution from smog, dust, and trash everywhere…. compared to our CLEAN air and environment…. I saw the absolutely disgusting water supply running through Addis Ababa compared to our water, the cleanest in the world…… I saw children wearing no shoes as opposed to Americans having 10 pairs of shoes….. I saw children walking miles upon miles, hours upon hours to school, as opposed to America who provides bus transportation to every student….. I saw what a privilege attending school in Ethiopia was, compared to us being required to attend school here in America…..I saw how ... read more