hornbreaker

...was this afternoon. It was the first time I had been since they moved. Sure, it lost the grungy chic, but it gained so much room. Call me a capitalist pig if you will, but I like being able to exit a restaurant without elbowing a whole bar’s worth of people in the head.

Eat the crabs you hit with hammers!

I visited Baltimore in high school on a visiting colleges trip with a friend. We stayed at her aunt’s house outside of the city. Since then, I’ve been to the airport a lot and gotten really into Baltimore-based TV shows like “The Wire” and “Homicide.” I’m visiting friends in DC in August and we’re going to an Orioles game. And, of course, seafood and beer. I’m very excited.

Shiner beer, the 4th most popular specialty brew in America! You can take a tour of the brewery and drink four small beers of your choice, but you can’t touch the copper brewing vats or take pictures inside. And everyone in this town is incredibly nice.

Today I accidentally stayed on 10 East when I should have gotten on 12. Was I confused by the map, or did I secretly want to go to New Orleans? Sadly, we’ll never know because I turned the car around, got on 12, and soon I was eating a giant cheeseburger in Denham Springs.

I visited both my sisters at Rice and a friend of Katherine’s said I was the missing link in the sister chain. I drank two local beers (St Arnold’s and Shiner Bock) and ate delicious pizza. Then we got free dorm breakfast and we were back on the road. I’ll be back in May for my Katherine’s graduation and I’ll spend more than a night here, but I enjoyed even this short trip. Except the traffic sucks! (when you arrive in the city at 5 pm)

We actually stayed right near it when we were in London, but there was so much to see at the British Museum that we never made it here! I hear it is lovely though.

After I spent a semester studying Roman architecture and ruins, I went to visit my aunt and uncle in Germany. They picked me up at the airport and didn’t tell me where I was going until we arrived here. Then they asked me to tell them all about the amphitheater they were excavating there. Pretty exciting.

Not to mention the final resting place of Keats, Shelley, Adorno, and many other foreigners and Protestants. And there are cats!

The best sculpture here is the “Daphne and Apollo” by Bernini. Apollo seizes Daphne just as she turns into a laurel tree. Her hands/branches are amazing – you can actually see through the marble. Definitely worth visiting, but you do need to make advance reservations.

South Dakota is a boring state to drive through but they try their best by putting up signs to tell you to go to Wall Drug. Ice water 5 cents! See the jackalope! Only 87 miles to Wall Drug! After a while it starts to get exciting and you have to go, because otherwise you’ll just think about it for the rest of your drive across South Dakota. Besides, there’s a T-Rex.

(I got a jackalope and took pictures I recently rediscovered and will hopefully post someday.)