Vacation - Part 2

Monday's adventures didn't start until mid-afternoon, since I slept well into the afternoon. I was super exhausted, and Eric had to finally wake me up since I wasn't waking up on my own. We had to rearrange our plans since my sleepiness put us behind schedule. We got cleaned up and headed back to the Inner Harbor area,where we were the night before. On the way there we stopped at a Subway and grabbed a few sandwiches for a late lunch. Once we arrived at the harbor, we bought tickets to see the historic ships situated around the harbor. Our first ship was the USS Constellation. The Constellation was the last all-sail ship built by the US Navy and it is the only vessel still afloat that saw active service during the Civil War. Eric and I both enjoyed touring the ship. There were very few other tourists there, so we were able to explore the ship without having to fight a crowd. After the Constellation we made a quick tour through the Chesapeake. It is a lightship that was commissioned in 1930. We spent much less time in this ship, since we boarded it close to closing time. I learned that a lightship is basically a floating lighthouse. My favorite tidbit I learned though, was that the Coast Guard ships used to have dogs for mascots. Accompanied by the history of some of the more famous dogs, were several pictures of the pooches in action. Next, we wandered around the harbor for a while before returning to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We took a taxi to Little Italy, for dinner at Sabatino's. Their garlic bread was absolutely fantastic. Our meals were delicious as well. Eric had fettuccine alfredo and I had lasagna. We walked back to our hotel, but stopped along the way at a bar in the Power Plant live area (which is like a very miniature version of KC's P&L area) for a few drinks.
Tuesday we got up and around much earlier, so we could see more of the sights we had listed on our itinerary. Baltimore has water taxis that shuttle passengers around the area for a flat fee for the day. We took one to the Fell's Point area for brunch. Before our trip, Eric and I had seen an episode of Diner's, Drive-ins, and Dives that featured a little restaurant called Blue Moon Cafe, located in Fell's Point. Ever since I saw the episode I had been dying to try it out. We both had their signature dish of Captain Crunch French Toast. I thought it was fabulous, but it was a bit too sweet for Eric. After strolling through the neighborhood for a little while, we headed back to the water taxi stop. While we waited for one, we looked at a British Navy destroyer that was docked at the harbor. It was enormous! Once the water taxi arrived, we took it to the aquarium. There were all sorts of cool creatures there. Some of our favorites were: an octopus, a sea turtle that was missing one of it's legs/fins, manta rays, jellyfish, and all kinds of sharks. We spent several hours at the aquarium since it was so big and had so many things to see. After we finished there, we took a very short walk to the USS Torsk. The Torsk is a submarine that was commissioned in 1944. It sank 2 Japanese coastal defense frigates in 1945. Next up, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the Orioles game. The stadium was just a short walk from our hotel so we headed over shortly before game time. Camden Yards, where the Orioles play, is an awesome ball park to visit. The stadium is in a great location and the park is full of vendors. Eric and I had a wonderful time at the game. We sat along the 3rd base foul line. During the game we partook in my favorite baseball activities; we drank beers, ate peanuts and BBQ, and cheered the home team on to a win. Baltimore beat Oakland 5-1. It was a nice finish to our stay in Baltimore. We left the next morning via train for Washington DC.

Vacation - Part 1

So, almost a year has gone by since I have posted anything. I feel pretty pathetic now that I realize how long it has been. I may try to go back and post about some of the things we have done since my last posting sometime soon. While our most recent trip is still somewhat fresh in my mind, I'll go ahead and give everyone a rundown of our vacation.
On Sunday, May 23 Eric and I left our house around 4:00am to get to the airport for our 6:00am flight to Philadelphia. (Us being us, we didn't go to bed until around 1:30 am, so we ended up getting less than 2 hours of sleep.) We made it in time for our flight and boarded the plane like normal. Just when we were about to push back, the captain came on over the intercom and announced that our flight was being delayed because of heavy fog in Detroit(our layover). Everyone was instructed to exit the plane and return to the gate for approximately 2 hours. Eric and I were worried about missing our connecting flight in Detroit to Philadelphia so he called the airline to see if alternate arrangements could be made. He ended up booking us a later flight to Philadelphia. We were so frustrated because we only had a few hours planned for Philly before we boarded a train and headed to Baltimore. Pretty much right after we made the change (probably only an hour had went by) they announced for everyone to re-board the plane since the fog had lifted. I called the airline back and told them we wanted our original seats back since we would probably end up making it on time now. The woman couldn't/wouldn't reissue them, however she told me once we landed to run to our gate to see if we could make our original connecting flight. Once we landed we did just that. They switched our tickets back and that flight ended up being delayed anyway and we waited around for a while.
We ended up making it to Philly shortly behind schedule. We even got our luggage. We were a little worried that it wouldn't make it since we had changed our connecting flight, and then changed it back. We decided to just take a cab downtown to the train station to leave our luggage there. It was pretty expensive for a fairly short cab ride, but it did get us there quicker than a bus or train. We stowed our bags for reasonably cheap and then walked over to the subway for a fast ride to the touristy downtown area. We quickly looked at the Liberty Bell. Neither of us were terribly impressed. I found a review on Frommer's for a supposedly great cheese steak place, so Eric plugged the address in his phone and we let the GPS guide us there. The first part of the walk was nice. We saw several parks, historical buildings, nice homes, and cool shops. However, we quickly were guided into a rather dirty part of town. The restaurant, Cosmi's, was more of a convenience shop with a small kitchen. Eric and I both chose the Cheese steak Trio, that had mushrooms, onions, and peppers. They set up a table outside for us, so that we could eat our sandwiches there. The cheese steaks were alright, but I was expecting something much better since we were in Philly and all. After our lunch we headed back to the historical downtown area. We walked around and checked out Christ Church Cemetery (Benjamin Franklin is buried there), Christ Church, walked in a few shops, and then took the subway back to the train station.
Before boarding the train to Baltimore, the Amtrak employees checked our tickets before allowing us to take the escalator down to the train. We were in the right spot so we proceeded down to wait for the train. Eric put his ticket in his back pocket while we waited. Once the train pulled up, we lugged our suitcases on and tried to shimmy them down the aisles without hitting anyone. The train departed the station shortly after we got on, and after we had walked through a few cars trying to find a seat we heard the announcement that they would be coming through the cars to check tickets. Eric realized his ticket was no longer in his pocket! We stopped where we were and I waited with the luggage while he walked back through the cars to see if his ticket had fallen out of his pocket. He didn't have any luck and we started to get a little concerned. My concern was close to a panic when the conductor chewed us out and told us to take our seats, even when Eric explained what had happened. We found a place to stow our luggage and then found seats for ourselves. When the conductor reached us he told Eric (in a rather unfriendly way) that he had found his ticket. I was so relieved. I thought that Eric was going to get kicked off the train while it was going! Next thing we knew, we were in Baltimore.
We grabbed a cab to the Sheraton. I was impressed by how quickly we got checked in. Our room was on the 25th floor and we had an amazing view. We could even see Camden Yards. After the long day of traveling and walking around in Philly, we both decided to clean up before venturing out to find some food and drinks. We walked a few blocks to the Inner Harbor area. We were both really impressed with the neighborhood. The harbor itself was adorned with old ships and the surrounding area had lots of restaurants and shops. However, it was a Sunday night and we didn't get there until late, so most everything was closed. We ended up walking around for over an hour before we finally went in somewhere. At that point I decided not to even eat because it was getting late and the exhaustion was finally taking its toll on me. Since we didn't eat, our dinner was a few beers at a cool bar/restaurant named Burke's. Following the beers we went back to the hotel and crashed.