unfinished work

So me and Alyssa (new friend at MICA) decide to go out yesterday and see the sights of Charles Village, which is essantially a long strip of stores, cafes, museums, and residential districts that run north and south along the (as we were later to find) incredibly long Charles Street. Charles Street is divided into north and south sectors according to where it intersects with Mt. Royal Avenue, which is the street one uses to get to MICA.

We came here with the intent of shopping, especially since north Charles street has some great alternative clothing stores and some neat restauraunts. Of course, it was raining constantly, so the day turned out to be very overcast and quite windy, but we were both willing to stick through it and continue on the journey of exploration we had so set ourselves to do.

Alyssa is a photographer and I had brought my camera too, so we ended up doing more photography than actual shopping. We ended up seeing probably half of central Baltimore—on part of our exploratory moods, on part of getting lost. When we endeavored to return to MICA and Mt. Royal, we soon realized that the places we were in were quite unfamiliar. We were still on Charles Street, but we had gone so far north that we weren't recognizing any of the other street names. Even worse, we didn't know whether to go further north or further south to get back to Mt. Royal and, hence, MICA.

Thankfully we hadn't gone down any back alleys so far that we couldn't get back to Charles Street. We were lost, but only in two directions. While in the process of getting back home—or not—we took lots and lots of pictures of the churches/cathedrals in the area, as well as some more grungy locations that we stayed in only long enough to get the pictures and then get out. We passed the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Baltimore Zoo, and a Safeway that is way too far north of MICA (at this point we were so tired that we went inside and got vitamin water, Quaker rice cookies, and some yogurt to keep us going.

Sitting on some other church's steps that looked like a court house, eating rice cookies and letting our legs rest, our clothes soaked from the rain and our hair messed up from the wind, Alyssa said, "I feel like a bum."

In the end, however, I was able to get directions from a local security guard at some random building and realize which direction we actually needed to go in order to get back home. An incredibly long walk later, we both arrived back at the Commons—drenched, clod, tired, and very hungry, whence we then went to the Meyerhoff and had a hearty meal with our wonderful mutual friend, Virgina, talking about our (or at least their) taste in guys and which features were most handsome and which were not.

Needless to say, it was an incredibly tiring, fun, and productive day. We were both directionally challenged, leading to the mishap—although I'll take credit for the blunder, since I had the map. But all's well that ends well, and we both had a lot of fun. We both took a ton of pictures, even weasling (well, not really) our way into the green and black cathedral that's in the heart of Baltimore (anyone entering the city from the south and heads toward MICA probably sees it).

But to really get an idea of what we saw, you just have to see the pictures themselves:

We both modelled for each other when the setting called for figure shots.

It was often the random things on sidestreets that caught our attentions—lots of things lended themselves to great composition. It was quite funny because we often ended up photographing the same things, but in different ways.

I especially liked these green chairs.

Here are a couple of shots from inside the green and black cathedral. It was the only one that was open to the public and we had to use a buzzer to communicate our interest as amatuer photographers. The staff there was very friendly, however, and they allowed us into even some of the smaller chapels in the church and their century-old library, which turned out to be very spooky.

Shot from in the library:

There was a grand piano in the main sanctuary that capture both Alyssa's interest and mine as well. My lens had fogged up with condensation so that these pictures of her came out very blurry, but I later made a great digital series of them which I will post later.

Pictures from when we were eating rice cookies like bums and shivering like wet kittens at the steps of yet another church:

All in all, however, it was quite the grand time, and neither of us really regrets getting lost. I don't know how many she took, but my camera offloaded 157 shots, and many of them turned out nicely.

I now know, however—and quite thorougly, too—what exactly is in Charles village, and why it's so important to know where it intersects with Mt. Royal.