Overcast

It's overcast and cool in Philly today. I vaguely remember waking up earlier this morning to a healthy rainshower, heard through the windows I leave open for most of the spring-summer-fall. That was probably around 8 or 9am, the time that most everyone else was getting ready and on their way to work. I rolled over in bed and fell back to sleep.

I just got done reading a chapter of "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. I sat in the reclining chair near the living-room window. For some reason there was an occasional smell of peaches, but not the smell from the actual fruit, it was the smell you'd associate with the peaches-and-cream flavor of Quaker oatmeal. I enjoyed the smell, despite being perplexed at its unknown source.

This past weekend was pretty good. Being temporarily unemployed (or, as my friend Julie calls it: "funemployed"), I decided to take advantage of the free time and take a trip that I haven't done for well over half a decade (as my friend Corey reminded me last week): south to DC and Baltimore. On Friday late afternoon, I walked to 30th Street Station to catch an Amtrak heading to DC. It was a two-hour ride that was pretty pleasant. Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore, I started talking to the girl sitting next to me. She was on her way from her Central Park apartment to visit her parents in Phoenix, Maryland, about 45 minutes north of Baltimore, on their multiacre property; she needed to recharge in the peace and quiet of the countryside. We wished each other a nice weekend as she got off the train at Baltimore.

Arriving in Union Station in DC, I was very impressed with the size, architecture, and quality of shops in the station. Philly's 30th Street Station has amazing architecture, but does not come anywhere close to rivaling Union Station's commercial appeal. Mike eventually met me in the food court, where I was eating some rice and bourbon chicken for dinner.

We took the metro to U Street, our destination for the night. We went to Marvin's, Saint-Etas, Gate 54, and Black Cat. My favorite spot, by far, was Gate 54. It had the feeling of an old World War I bunker, complete with street signs and war paraphernalia on the walls. The fact that it was underground and dimly lit gave it a sense of coziness. And the dj really set things right by playing a lot of Motown before eventually transitioning to some old school, jazz-influenced hip-hop. The whole scene brought me back to my early days in Philly, and my favorite spot of all-time: Soma, which no longer exists. I may be going back to DC more frequently, if for no other reason than to soak up the positive, nostalgic vibe that I get at Gate 54.

Saturday, Mike and I went to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. Then, after stopping back at his place shortly, we hit the road to Baltimore. After patiently hunting down a parking spot near the corner of Charles and Chase streets, we walked to the Metro Art Gallery, where Evan's brother Ryan was playing a gig with his band, Rain the Shining. Mike and I had only missed two songs by the time we got there. The gig was part of the larger event: Artscape. Walking to the gallery, there were tons of artists' booths and displays, and tons of pedestrians crowding Charles Street, which was blocked-off to traffic. The weather was clear and low-humidity; it was perfect.

After the show, we got a jerk chicken dinner from a food vendor under a tent. Then, we drove to Bourbon Street, a club on Guilford Street in Baltimore. We hung out there for the rest of the night, on the roofdeck. I talked to several people over the course of the night. At one point an attractive girl, whose name I later got to be Alexa, walked by, so I waved at her, she said I was "hot," so I waved her over to me, she came directly up to me and we spontaneously exchanged a warm hug; she gave me her phone number without me even asking, and she told me to meet her later at some bar in Towson.

Despite the invitation, and our initial plan to do late-night in Baltimore, Mike and I decided to take the plunge and just drive back to Philly right then, at around 3 in the morning. We drove north up Charles Street, passing through Loyola College (prompting me to send a late-night text to Jess Lauria), and eventually getting on to 695, then on to 95-North. We stopped once at a rest stop to get a large coffee, our fuel to make it the rest of the way back to the double-deuce & Spruce. We finally arrived at around 5am. But I couldn't fall asleep for at least a couple hours, probably because of the caffeine still coursing through my veins.

The rest of the weekend was typical: coffee at La Colombe, hanging out in Rittenhouse Square, going to church at St. Patrick's (Mike joined me for that). So that's that. Now my sleep schedule is still messed up, but I'm trying to get back on track. It was a good weekend and thus totally worth it.