Downtown Ellicott City!

Since I moved here, one of my best friends has been telling me all about downtown Ellicott City and the amazingness you can find there. Now that I've taken a job in Ellicott City, I figured it was time to explore! My Baltimore BFF, CJ (you may remember her as Babe the Blue ox from a previous post!), and I decided to spend Saturday afternoon exploring. She was sort of my guide because she had been there before and knew where all the hot spots were! Finding street parking is just like in any city... you have to get lucky! But Main Street in Ellicott has a few, FREE, parking lots behind all the of the shops/cafes and they're pretty large and in charge so parking wasn't really an issue at all. 

WE WERE PARKED AND READY TO GET THE FUN STARTED! AHH!

First: LUNCH! 

We started walking down Main Street and spotted a nice little Italian place called Johnny's Bistro on Main. When you walk in, there's a little sign that says "Please order at counter" so we walked to this little counter and placed our order. They give you a number to place on your table and then you wait for your food. We did see some people walk in and just sit and order with the waitresses, so maybe you can do that too? Probably something the locals/regulars do? Who knows! Anyway... our food came and it was AMAZING. I can't even. CJ ordered the King of the Sea panini and it looked DELISH! It consisted of Smoked Alaskan salmon, dill havarti, cucumber, sweet onion and caper cream cheese. You can also get a side of Williamsburg slaw or shoe string fries, CJ got fries! I ordered the Grilled chicken caesar salad (hey, I have to get into a wedding dress in April, people!) and it was one of the best salads I have ever had. And I've had a lot of salads. I'm sort of a caesar salad expert in case y'all didn't know. CJ wanted to splurge so she ordered Creme Brulee. I highly, highly recommend lunching at this place. The next time I go, I'm going to order one of their personal pizzas because they looked like they were TO DIE FOR. 

King of the Sea Panini

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

Creme Brulee

OOOHH.MYYYY.GOOSSHHH. IT WAS SOOOO GOOOOD!!

After stuffing our faces, we mosied on down Main to check out some local shops. CJ raved about this one shop called Vintage Bliss. This place was certainly worth checking out. It had EVERYTHING. They had refurbished furniture, make your own jewelry stations, clothes, handmade items from vendors... I mean, EVERYTHING. Some of it was a little kooky but that made it even better for me. I LOVE finding unique things you will never find anywhere else. This shop also has paint parties using Milk Paint. You can bring pieces of your furniture in and they will teach you how to paint it or antique it. Super cool place if you want to redecorate your home! I'll definitely be visiting them again to spruce up our little house.

           

Here are a few pieces of Homemade jewelry. The necklace was super cool because it's made out of clock/watch faces!

Some pieces of clothing including homemade decorative bra straps. Ya know, in case you don't want to sport that strapless look, ladies!

This. This was so creepy. A bracelet made out of doll faces. DOLL FACES, Y'ALL!

A cute dresser and painted signs. Cute for a nursery! 

Our next venture was to Caplan's Department Store. The jewelry and dresses at Caplan's are seriously just the cutest! They also had a ton of cool kitchen/household gadgets. I couldn't get enough! 

We popped into a few other stores (I won't name every single thing we checked out) including a store for the pups called Work!Play!Bark! which was adorbs. CJ even bought a super cute birthday cake for her Boston Terrier, Prince. The birthday cakes are made from natural ingredients so the humans can nosh on them with their pooches! I don't know that I would eat one, but hey, to each their own! We also hit up a store called Love and Glitter that was going out of business and having a huge closeout sale so don't make plans to go there anytime soon, because it'll be gone! There's also a little Fair Trade store called HutCraft. The cool thing about HutCraft is they host painting parties! You can book them for private parties or just join an upcoming class. Not only do you get to bring home your own work of art, but you can bring your own wine or beer to drink while you paint! I don't know if that's the best idea for me because my artistic talents are pretty slim to none while I'm sober much less three sheets to the wind! 

We ran into Yoda while we were walking around. No big deal.

Downtown Ellicott City gets two thumbs up from me for sure and I can't wait to go back and see what else they have to offer! 

B. and Z. Take the Zoo

One of my very good friends was in town for about a week and on his last day here, we wanted to do something low key because he had an early morning flight. Obviously, The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore is what came to mind. I LOVE zoos. I cannot emphasize that enough. Every single time I go to the zoo, I come away having discovered some new crazy animal I had never heard of, like for example, the Hellbender. As disgusting as this salamander (or "snot otter" as some call them) is, I never knew he was out there! If you can't tell, whenever I'm at the zoo my inner nerd does cartwheels and somersaults. The only part about the zoo that freaks me out would have to be the caves and the Baltimore zoo had plenty of them. The caves are usually dedicated to the snakes and spiders and other horrifying creepy crawlies. I push through so I can look brave but inside I'm running away screaming. Since it was a Tuesday, Z. and I had NO problem getting in and wandering around because it was completely empty. They offer a courtesy shuttle to the main zoo area if you don't want to use the walking path and when we reached the shuttle stop, we were the only ones in line and the only ones on the bus, which was kind of nice because normally zoos are filled with crying children and that one annoying little boy that wants to stick his gum in your hair (yeah, that happened to me once). It was a pretty standard zoo... they had all the big animals including: lions, chimpanzees, cheetahs, giraffes, rhinos, etc. They were all absolutely fascinating, but the one I loved the most was the POLAR BEAR! They house two polar bears but we only got to gander at the female and she was so funny. She actually woke up while we were there and started rolling around to appease an itch and then stretched out and yawned a bit before finding another spot to plop down and go back to sleep. I instantly fell in love. I'm gushing over all the animals we got to see but there were a few that were missing. They didn't have pandas (which isn't that uncommon because only a few zoos in the nation have a panda bear), koalas, gorillas, and a couple of others that I can't think of right off the top of my head. I know they have most of those at the D.C. zoo, so I can always just go there if I'm in the mood to ogle a koala. One of the biggest downsides to this zoo is the construction they have going on. There were several areas that were closed off due to construction. There was one very large work zone right by the cafeteria and carousel that is apparently going to be the new home for the penguins in 2015. Honestly, those penguins are going to have a baller house because it looked MASSIVE. There were also a few other small construction areas but the penguin habitat definitely is an eyesore at this point. Of course, it can't be helped. The cafeteria food was pretty standard and certainly nothing spectacular. I mean, it's just frozen food they stick in a fryer, right? We did the whole zoo in about 2.5-3 hours but that was because we knew it closed at 4 and wanted to see everything so we weren't really taking a lot of breaks.  If I go again, I'd probably make a whole day out of it and go on the weekend because it seemed like most of the talks and animal feedings happen on Saturdays. We did happen upon a "Big Tree Slide" at the end of a cave and really, really wanted to slide down it regardless of the "No Adults Allowed" signs but there were a couple of kids going down it and I didn't want their parents to judge me. It was a lot of fun and I would definitely go again, but I have been spoiled by the zoo in Columbia, SC and just kept comparing them in my head.


Perks of going on a random weekday: No lines and no crowds

Cons of going on a random weekday: The adult cafes that serve "Marga-cheetahs" are closed, there are no live feedings, and no talks/seminars on some of the animals

And yes, Marga-cheetahs are a real drink they serve.

All in all, I would give the zoo itself 3 out of 5 stars, but I would give the day 5 out of 5 stars! The zoo rating may change if I go back on the weekend or if I go back when they open the penguin exhibit in 2015!

I snapped a few shots while we were there so here's a few of my faves....

Leopard!

Polar bear! ... So adorbs...

Warthog, aka, a real life Pumba! Where's Timone?

Man's (and woman's!) Best Friend

A dog will teach you unconditional love. If you can have that in your life, things won't be too bad.

I think Robert Wagner hit the nail on the head when he made that statement some years ago. My fiance and I own TWO Boykin Spaniels, a.k.a Swamp Poodles, and they are the sweetest, most loyal dogs we could ask for BUT if you know anything about the breed then you know they are hyper as fudge energetic! I am constantly looking for things to do with them to wear them out. Dog parks, ponds, even trips to PetSmart... anything to make them less hyper in the evenings. Fortunately, in a city this big there is ALWAYS something to do with them. Last weekend we discovered the Baltimore Humane Society Dog Fest so we immediately made plans to go. It was on a Saturday during the day which was perfect because it meant my fiance could go instead of me trying to wrangle both dogs all day by myself. We loaded up the Mini Cooper and headed out around noon. It was REALLY, REALLY hot outside which was one of the biggest downsides, because ALL of the dogs there were panting like crazy and trying to lay down as much as possible. There was a $10 entrance fee for the humans but it was worth it because all proceeds go to helping the humane society which is something I never mind. I mean, I can't even watch those Sarah McLachlan commercials without tearing up and scrambling to turn the channel as fast as humanly possibly so I'm certainly not even going to think twice about giving them $10. It's such a good cause and I can only hope more people get involved in helping out the humane society in their communities. Anyhoo, when you entered the Dog Fest, they gave you a bottle of cold water and a bowl for your little critters (thankfully, because like I said... it was burning up!) and they directed you to a GINORMOUS field set up with all sorts of fun for our furry friends. Some of the stations were free and some of them were $2-3 bucks. The dog swim was $3 and we really wanted to participate but the line was way too long by the time we got there so we decided to explore some of the other stations. They had so many fun games and contests including: Find the Treasure, Hide and Seek, Most Photogenic, Best Kisser, Smallest Dog, and the list goes on and on. The volunteers were all very helpful and really great with all the dogs. They even had an agility course if you wanted to see how skilled your pups could be at seesaws and jumping through hoops. Let's just say... you won't be seeing Rusty and Huck (our Boykins) on Animal Planet anytime soon! Eventually, it did get too hot for our pooches. Rusty just started plopping down anytime we found shade so we knew it was time to head back to the shaded area where they were serving food. They had 4-5 food trucks, including a SC BBQ truck that made me so happy to see, and lots of drink and dessert stands. Some of the food was a little bit pricey but a portion of it was all going to help the animals so I didn't mind as much. I had some delicious Ahi Tuna Tacos from the WOLO truck and C. got some concoction called a "Crab Cone" from a food truck called The Gypsy Queen. His food wasn't as good as mine, but we wanted to try a variety instead of both eating at the same truck. The fresh squeezed lemonade was probably my favorite part of the day, and it was probably only that good to me because of the heat but I don't care. We finally came full circle and ended up back at the beginning. While the Dog Fest was a lot of fun for the pooches and it was for a good cause, I still can't give it 5 stars. Obviously, they can't help the weather but some of the festivity lines could have been helped by letting more than one dog participate at a time. For example, the dog swim was the most popular event but so many people were skipping it because they would only let one dog swim at a time and the line just kept growing and growing. It was even longer when we left than we we arrived and it was pretty long when we got there. All in all, I give it 3.5 stars out of 5 and yes, I would do it again. Even if the humans don't have as much fun, the dogs had a blast and that's really why you go in the first place, right? I can't wait to do it again next year!

Oh yeah, another annoying aspect for us was people trying to guess what breed our dogs were. Being that they are a South Carolina breed, no one here has really ever seen them so we kept getting random people guessing things like "Is that the rare Lakota retriever?" or "Is that there a large cocker spaniel?"  <--- What the heck is a Large Cocker Spaniel? Is that even a thing? Needless to say, if you have a rare breed, beware the crazy questions. 

Bonus: Can you guess which one is Rusty and which one is Huck?

New Surroundings

I grew up in a small beach town in South Carolina so I've never really been in a city. I went to college in a "city" in SC but let's be real... cities in South Carolina are nowhere near the hustle and bustle as they are up north. 

Tangent: While I am aware that Maryland is below the Mason-Dixon line and parts of it are steeped in southern heritage, throughout my entire blog, I will maintain that Baltimore is very much a "northern" city. 

I have two rules about what makes an area "southern:" 

1. You can go into a local restaurant and order sweet tea without getting funny looks.

2. People are generally kind and hospitable. 

Baltimore does not adhere to either of those rules so in my book it's not the south. 

OKokok, enough of my ramblings on sweet tea and the south. The point is I am VERY excited and a little nervous about living in a "big" city! Not to mention, when most people think of Baltimore, they automatically picture scenes from The Wire and assume I'm going to be dead by the end of the year. Albeit, parts of Charm City are far less than charming, the heart of Baltimore is absolutely incredible! I mean have you ever been to the Inner Harbor or out in Fed Hill on a Saturday night? There is just so much to take in and so much to be a part of. My fiance works at a start up smack dab in the center of Fed Hill and he gets free valet parking so we don't encounter a lot of the parking woes that we hear about, which I'm guessing makes the city that much better for us. I have only been here for a couple of weeks but here's a few places I am already obsessed with:

1. Wegman's! 

It is the local grocery store where we live and I absolutely LOVE it. They are HUGE and they have just about anything you can think of. They have Seafood stations (pictured), butcher stations, Indian/Asian/Mediterranean/American/Mexican buffet bars if you're on the go and need a lunch fix. I mean, they are just amazing. My fiance is particularly ooo-ing and ahh-ing over their "Create your own Trail Mix" bar and while I am in love with the candy aisle, my butt isn't. Anyway... if you have never been to a Wegman's, you don't know what you're missing! 

2. Heavy Seas Beer! 

This is a local brand of beer that is ACTUALLY brewed in Baltimore unlike Natty Bo which claims to be. I recently went on the brew tour and it was just fascinating. We have done a bout of home brewing before so I have only known the process on such a small scale. First of all, the staff at this place was phenomenal and the beer was even better. I couldn't have asked for a better experience for $5. That's right! The tour was free but you could pay $5 bucks and try the beers while you toured! It is one of the funnest things I've done in Baltimore so far. Not to mention they are opening a new lounge on site so you can just go have a beer after work if you want. If you are ever in this area, DO IT! 

3. Social Pub and Pie!

Such a fun pub and GREAT prices. Forever, all people told me about was how pricey everything was in the city, especially eating out and having drinks. If you know me, you know I am a social butterfly but I was skeptical about going out here because I didn't want Good Time Charlie to get a hold of my wallet. I am lucky that one of my best friends has lived here for a while and she invited us out one evening to this little place! It was SO much fun. They have the best happy hour prices around and it doesn't just apply to drinks! You can get $5 pizzas, 50% off salads (that are only $9) and they also have an Orange Crush liquor drink that is to die for. I stuck to beer but CJ was helping herself to those crushes. ;) Needless to say, if you're in the city and you want a fun atmosphere with cheap dinner/drinks... this is the place to be! 

Baltimore is certainly a big place and I have tons more to explore but those are just a few little gems I have found so far. My fiance is going on a "Crabcake Tour" to discover which restaurant has Baltimore's BEST EVER crabcake. I'm sure he'll be sick of crab soon enough, but I'll keep you updated on the process once he gets started. Hope you enjoyed the read!