Weekend in Baltimore

A few months ago, my sister moved from the highly religious area of Grand Rapids, MI to Baltimore. I decided to head down there for the weekend. I headed to Penn Station, NY at 6 on Friday and arrived at Penn Station Baltimore at 9. I do enjoy taking the train compared to plane at times. I found it much more relaxing and usually has better views than on a plane.

My brother-in-law, Kevin picked me from the train station and I went back to their bi-level house in suburbia. It was good to see family. That is the one thing that I miss is being near family and all my friends. So I cherish these times. My nieces and nephews were watching their favorite show, the Simpsons when I arrived. I gave them their Singaporean souvenirs. I showed my sister the photos from Singapore.

The next day started early. We headed to the Inner Harbor. My nephew wanted to go to ComicCon. As expected, saw some interesting characters donned in their favorite comic characters, Batman, Darth Vader, etc. My sister, niece and I did not go in. We headed to the Hard Rock for some brunch.

My niece had a soccer game. She's not a bad player. Her team, the Cougars pounced on their opponent 6-0. My niece made some sweet saves at goalie. She was very aggressive.

The rest of the day consisted of college football and moving furniture. The only day of the year that I root for Michigan State is because they are playing Notre Dame. Even though I went to Notre Dame High School, I still see them as a nemesis, similar to Roy seeing the Skanks as the Orioles nemesis. Michigan State pulled what the Wolverines could not do the previous week, beat ND.

The final day was spent down in the nation's capital. This was my first visit down to DC. I tried to focus on what I wanted to see. I was lucky to have Kevin, who has a very good knowledge of the drive down there and the places we passed along with the buildings and monuments. We focused on the National Mall. I saw the Lincoln Memorial. I didn't realized how big it was. I read his whole ingaural speech from 1864 that was on one of the walls.

After that I saw all three war memorials. We ended up going in chronological order starting with the Korean War Memorial. That wa the eeriest one of them all. The scupltures of the soldier were very lifelike and captured the feelings that they were going through. The next was the most famous the Vietnam War Memorial. While it was very simple, it was very moving, especially as you passed the people who were using a pencil to copy a friend, family, or someone else. There were veterans hugging other veterans. Lone people were crying looking at the names. Deep.

The final and newest memorial was the WWII. It was in an oval with every state and on a wall. On one side was the a memorial for the Pacific front and the other side was the Atlantic front. The kids were beat, so we headed back to the car and headed to George Washington University for some pizza at Bertucci's. I have to say it was one of the best pizzas I ever ate.