I’ve got some extra time to kill, since I’m skipping some of the Organized Fun Events at the conference, and instead just being a tourist here in Baltimore. I’ve only ever spent the night in Baltimore once, about 8-9 years ago, so I want to take the chance to see the sights around the Inner Harbor where I’m staying.
On Thursday night I thought about heading to the ESPN Zone and seeing what all the fuss was about, but after reading some not-too-glowing reviews on Tripadvisor, I decided to walk around and look around the neighborhood and see what else there was. I was really in the mood for seafood, so I tried to target some of the seafood restaurants around my hotel, the Marriott Baltimore Waterfront, but when I saw $45 for a plate of crab cakes, I decided to just find someplace that wouldn’t eat my wallet.
I wound up at James Joyce’s Irish Pub (I think that’s the name), and had a plate of calamari and fried fish for half the cost of those crab cakes. They were pretty good, too.
The Inner Harbor area is very much a tourist trap, and very expensive. You’ll find all sorts of theme restaurants and chains all over the place, and all of them will be happy to liberate your cash from your wallet. So be warned.
But it’s somewhat architecturally pleasing, so that counts for something.
If you want really good Italian food, you’re supposed to go to Little Italy, which is in the same area. I’m going to try going to one of the Italian bakeries to bring some cannoli to the beach for my relatives. I’ll save that for Saturday night.
Sleeping with the Fishes
Tonight (Friday) I went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Let’s get this out of the way. It’s expensive. Outrageously so. $25 just to see the fish. $30 if you want the “full experience.” I didn’t want the “full experience,” so I just took the $25 hit in the wallet.
I can’t really say that I got my money’s worth.
I realize that it’s an aquarium, and all aquariums have fish in them, but this place had that “funky” odor of not being well maintained. I’ve been to a number of aquariums in my time– notably the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, and the Kaiyukan in Osaka, and both blow this place out of the water in both exhibit quality and overall fit and finish. I just kept feeling like I wanted to wash my hands, and I don’t know why.
One of the most irritating things was that the fish in the tank and the fish pictures around the tank never seemed to match up. It was almost as if they had decided to just take all of the explanation cards and shuffle them all up, just to confuse me.
Maybe the fish were on vacation or something.
There were some cool things to see– the sharks were impressive.
And there was a cute cowfish who kept chasing this one guy’s digital camera and jumping in front of the other fish to be in the picture. The Australian exhibit was nice, albeit kind of short, as was the rain forest exhibit.
But $25 is a lot to ask for this particular aquarium trip.
I stopped by the snack bar to see if I could get a quick bite (because I was starving), but the prices were so ridiculous, I just suffered. $3.00 for a bottle of water is nuts. $6.75 for an object that barely resembles a sandwich, doubly so.
There’s a gift shop, too. But I didn’t want to take out a mortgage for it.
After that, I wandered around the Inner Harbor some more, taking pictures of the ships at anchor, and looking around at some of the buildings. It’s a nice place, but it’s expensive. I wound up eating dinner in my room, thanks to the power of my portable electric cooler and some pre-trip planning, and had dessert at Haagen-Dasz…
which was also expensive.
I’m sensing a pattern here.