This American Wife: Charmed and Dangerous

We spent a memorable long weekend in Baltimore while I attended the American Society of Cytopathology annual meeting, presented a research poster and went to seminars. But mostly we quoted The Wire nonstop. It's an HBO series about the drug trade in Baltimore and it is some great, great television (you have to be prepared for the extremely colorful argot of the police and the criminals, however) and was filmed in Charm City, and we wanted to visit some filming locations...
On Friday we went to Lexington Market (featured in the show) and had fish and chips and a crab cake. This locale was a little shadier than we expected but tolerable. From there we walked to the Poe House, where Edgar Allen Poe lived for a time. No map consultation other than the iPhone- I had read about the Poe House as a tourist destination in a travel guide in SATX. Apparently we did not recall this scene from the Wire before departing:

(Watch from 1:37 - 2:04)

We arrived at the Poe House after the neighborhood sort of imperceptibly decayed from okay to really-probably-not-ok-to-be-there. We knocked on the door.

Rapping, rapping at the chamber door

We knocked...the docent unlocked and opened the door, explained a school tour was in progress and that no one else could be accommodated, and, after giving us the directions to the bus stop, closed the door and locked it. Click. Leaving us on the stoop. We called a cab. I took some pictures while remaining situationally aware.

For Wire fans: we walked from No. 5, Lexington Market, to No. 8, the Poe House. West of No. 4, the Terrace. Sheeeeeeiiiiiiiittttt!

Other tourists began to accumulate. We waited and waited. No cab. Finally the door opened, the kids ran out and the docent beckoned us to come in. By then, 45 minutes later, there was no cab and we had a secured a ride from another pair of tourists back to our hotel. Finally, the Poe House!

Tiny stairway

No personal effects. The Poe House is merely a structure with no historical objects! Cousins David and Julia- he a choreographer for Dancing with the Stars and she (in town for evaluation at Johns Hopkins with cousin David as moral support) an engineering graduate student - spirited us back to the Inner Harbor. Where later in the evening our kind waiter presented us with this list after hearing about our afternoon excursion:

The remainder of the trip was thankfully restful. The Inner Harbor is really lovely, and the weather was gorgeous.

Lexington Market

Lunch at Faidley's

"Science fair for grown-ups" Luke said. My poster at the meeting.

Occupy Baltimore

Dinner at Kona Grill

Now for a strange coincidence. We are walking the half-block from the convention center to our Holiday Inn when Luke says, what does that clock say? Is it letters? Bromo....

And I say, What? BROMOSELTZER?

I finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on the plane to Baltimore and couldn't believe it- we were staying in the Holiday Inn facing the Bromoseltzer clock tower mentioned in the book, the same hotel the author was taken aback when she re-reads the 1970s Rolling Stone article in which the reporter is sitting in the Holiday Inn, looking at the Bromoseltzer clock face. WHOA.

Other highlights included catching up with old friends (St Louis) and new friends (San Antonio) in town for the meeting; seeing Luke's friends Ricky and Andrea Mojica and taking advantage of McCormick & Schmick's delicious and inexpensive happy hour.

Mussels and oysters

Key words: ALL DAY SUNDAY. We went twice.

Before our flight on Tuesday we took one last walk around central Baltimore. A beautiful day and a great trip. I learned a lot, we went on a walking tour of the Western (!), we ate more seafood than ever before...