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! 

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!