I was in Baltimore for a nerd-science conference. I learned some useful nerd stuff that will save me time in the lab, so it was totally worth it. I had heard that Baltimore was kind of a crappy city, but I thought it actually wasn't so bad. Baltimore seems like a microcosm of Chicago (take Chicago and shrink it): there are sweet bars and cool things to do, there are really bad areas, the best stuff is not near the conference center, and if you can walk a mile and a half, your opportunities expand.
The view from (the hallway in) my hotel.
Some friends and I went to a tiny restaurant along the bay and got a dozen blue crabs and two pitchers of beer. They cover your table in butcher paper, dump the crabs on, give you a bucket for all the discarded shell bits, and show you the whole multi-step procedure for pulling the crabs apart to get the meaty pieces.
Very good crab soup.
I also took a trip to the National Aquarium, which was really cool. I went on a weekday near closing time, so it was almost deserted. I watched the dolphins make bubble rings (like smoke rings) that travel through the water, and watched the dolphins play with them. I got to talk to a worker as she fed the fish (and she pointed out when the fish were going to jump out of the water to get the food), and watched a lizard jump over our heads in the Australia exhibit. In another exhibit, one of the docents pointed out a Monterrey eel named Oscar, who was (I swear) winking at me. I showed the video to Oscar the human, but he was pretty unimpressed, and less jealous than I was hoping.
Views of the harbor:
Meanwhile, at home, the ratas got fed up with being stuck in their cage, and escaped twice in one night. My roommate went to investigate the noises in my room, and found them looking guilty on my desk.
