Magical Monday --- Back to Baltimore

Last Monday I told you the story of my first big exposure to the world of magic by going to a magic convention in Baltimore when I was in Junior High. Twelve years later I made another trip to Baltimore for a convention...but this time instead of going to check out all the great magicians, people were coming to check out me (big difference 12 years can make!).

So I was working at the convention center for 3 days and had a booth set up that I would do my close-up show for people in attendance. On one of the days my uncle Mike came with me since he only lives about 45 minutes from Baltimore. He is not a huge fan of the city because of the dangers (and the homeless guy on the street taking our last pennies the last time we were there probably didn't help!). But anyway, I convinced him that I saw on the news that Baltimore is one of the lowest crime cities in the nation.

During the afternoon, I had a 2-hour break so we thought we would head out to the inner harbor (pictured above). They have free entertainment there, you can watch the boats, and get some good food. Only problem was, we had no clue how to get there. Someone told us it was a 15-20 minute walk, so we started on our journey. We asked some guy on the street how to get there...he said, "Give me $5.00 and I'll tell you". We laughed thinking he was joking, but he said, "No, I mean it, give me $5.00". So we handed him the money and he said, "Just keep going the way you are going and you'll get there in about 10 blocks".

So we continued for about 1/2 hour and still had no clue where we were. There was a taxi at a red light so I yelled over and asked if we were going the right direction for the Inner Harbor. He said, "No, jump it". So we got in and the guy who earlier taken our $5.00 had sent us in the wrong direction! There was some type of parade going on, and we sat in the cab forever. By the time we made it to the Inner Harbor, an hour and a half had passed...and we just took the cab back. The cab ride was another $10, so this $15 journey through Baltimore got us pretty much nothing...other than a good story I could one day tell on my blog.

Oh, and when we arrived home that night we were watching the news. And although my assessment of Baltimore being very low in overall crime, it is ranked #2 in the nation (per capita) for murder. So they don't rob you there...they just kill you. Wonder if my uncle Mike has been back since?