Generally Discontent

Well, yesterday was one hell of a day. Jay was off for Veteran's Day, so the three of us drove into the city to have lunch and visit the National Aquarium, which I was told was amazing and fun. Though I had doubts - since everyone knows that the One True Aquarium is the New England Aquarium in Boston - I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was in fact amazing and fun, and amazingly fun. If you made it through those two sentences without some kind of blood vessel bursting, I applaud you.

So we got to Baltimore after a scenic drive through the Loyola University campus as well as the "old money" area on the outskirts of the city, where many multi-million dollar homes dwell. I was hungry and whiney, so we had some lunch before taking a casual stroll through the harbor area on the way to the aquarium. I also finally picked up some postcards to send to family and friends.

Finally, the aquarium! We got in and were greeted with the stingray pool which was full of stingrays, as you might expect. There were a few other fish as well as a three-flippered turtle. Later in the day, we'd see some divers feeding these fish through the windows looking in at the tank from below, though my secret guilty hope that the stingrays would turn on the divers, resulting in a horrid bloodbath went unfulfilled. Near the stingrays were the sharks, who were cool but not as cool as I'd hoped. Maybe that's just because the sharks weren't eating any people at the time, I don't know. No, I don't have a "violent fish attack" fetish. Why do you ask?

Then it was a long, curving path throughout the building, tons of cool and educational displays with all sorts of fish and animals, pretty much what you'd expect from an aquarium. But there were a few outstanding displays, particularly the rain forest area, which was in a hermetically-sealed secrtion of the place and full of tropical plants and animals. And humid as hell. Good thing I was wearing my leather jacket and a hooded sweatshirt! Ugh.

But despite the heat, the rain forest area was fantastic. Dozens of colorful birds flew this way and that, sat on branches preening themselves. We saw some piranhas, other assorted fish, and what was by far the best part, a golden lion tamarin, which was a little daffy orange monkey who seemed to always be saying, "What the hell are you people doing in MY house?"

But for all the educational areas of the aquarium, nothing could match the big fish tank. At first glance, it might seem the most mundane area, the least interesting. It's just a bunch of fish floating around, after all. But if you really look at the fish, you'll see all sorts of amazing things. I don't think I ever really noticed just how beautiful fish could be, even the ones that seem typical, the ones you see sitting on ice in your local fish market. But the colors, the shapes, the natural evolutionary choices in camouflage and social interaction just had me mesmerized. I felt like a little kid again, discovering something new that not many others saw. Goddamn that was fun.

But while the fish were fantastic, the other people there left something to be desired. It was early on a weekday, but the kids were still there, as were the old people. If you weren't being blocked by slow-walking, unobservant butterbeasts and their fifteen screaming children, you had to dodge between ancient, shambling husks of people who you wouldn't know were alive if not for the fact that they were standing up. Then there was the guy who practically used his own baby as a battering ram to get through the crowds, and the rugrats who ran rampant through the place, inches from death or serious injury at every moment, and the parents who couldn't have cared less. However, none of that could get us down, since we were having such a great time.

After the aquarium, we headed over to Fell's Point, where I had actually been a few years ago when my brothers, Jeff and I went down to see a Red Sox-Orioles game. We had a beer then headed back home, or tried to, anyway. There was an accident on 95 and it took us a good hour to get back to the house. Just in time to clean up quickly and head back out in order to meet Susie for her birthday dinner at Michael's, a semi-swanky seafood restaurant nearby.

Dinner was great, and we learned a lot about Susie, about being a pharmacist in Trinidad, how she knew how to prepare and grind coffee beans (I'm talking getting the beans straight from the field and the process that goes into making the coffee beans coffee), lots of other stuff. Then it was off to Padonia Station for drinks and pool, the Friday night thing. Jay was pretty exhausted, so he headed home after Vani secured a ride for us, so we hung out for another hour or so, just chatting and drinking and having fun.

Unfortunately, Jay got pretty ill shortly after we got home, something about the dinner and the odd mix of wine, beer, and Jack Daniels didn't sit right. Vani tended to him while I tiredly chatted with Mandii in Aussie land, and was happy to hear that she and her husband had finally found a house to move into when Frank is transferred to Syndey in December. So, despite the puking, the day was as happy as it could possibly be, with lots of fun stuff and good news. Not a bad semi-end to my stay in Maryland. Not bad at all.

Not to say I'm not feeling bad. Or sad, rather. I'm sad as hell to be leaving this place. Though it may seem that I haven't done a whole lot down here, it's been an eventful month, what with the illnesses and accidents and arguments and discussions and discoveries and deer. It's also been the first place where I've actually felt a bit homesick. I don't know if that's because of the passage of time or the distance from home, but I really do miss my family and friends and my city. But I'll see them all again real soon. I've still got a bit more left to do.

Though things are bound to get stranger, I suspect. Maryland has been partially alien to me, but that might just be because I don't have a good sense of where I am exactly and what lies beyond the green hills that surround me. The people have been alien to me as well, to a degree. But I just need to remind myself that they're no different from any other people, the same reminder I needed in Europe, in LA, in all my other travels. I must remember the wisdom of the great French philosopher Jean Depeche Mode: People are people. Indeed. Indeed.

So now I'm going to go get prepared to leave, gotta do some laundry, pack up my stuff, clean up after myself, a few other odds and ends. I really don't want to leave, but I know I must. Vani and Jay have been spectacular to me, and I hope I've given them something positive during my stay. But they're not so far away, nor are any of the other folks I've stayed with or will be staying with, not far away at all.

NOTE: There are two galleries of aquarium pictures, one by me and the other by vani. Go check em out!