Yvette, Amy and I by Baltimores' Inner Harbour
We celebrated the 4th July in Baltimore and had a fantastic time. We stayed in the HI Hostel on Mulberry Street, truly the best hostel I have ever stayed in, the staff here make it as wonderful as it is, they are so friendly and helpful and there is loads going on.
We stayed in a dorm room and last night new people arrived, Jean a middle aged lady from New Jersey came in fairly late so it wasn’t until this morning that we got to talk, but she is super cool and said she was really inspired by our travels and may now investigate going to Thailand or Bali! Amy, a Chinese uni student studying in Italy but in the US on a work programme for the summer also arrived pretty late, but she is so cute and adorable, everyone has kind of adopted her and taken her under their wing!. And Yvette who everyone thought was in her early twenties but is actually forty and is a single mother from the Bronx, making the most of a free weekend while her daughter was at camp.
We had a lazy day in and Katie helped set up a BBQ that the hostel was hosting for residents. For $5 I got to eat as many hotdogs, burgers, pickles and salad as I could and as much soda as I wanted, Katie got it all free for helping! She’d been entertaining the staff all day and like so many places before, I think she has left her own little mark here.
After the BBQ we hung out in the dorm for a while with Yvette and Amy before walking down to the harbour for the live music and to wait for the fireworks. After taking a couple of rides on the water taxi which we noticed no one charged us for, even though others were paying, got away with that one!, Yvette and I went for a drink and listened to some live music while Amy and Katie went shopping and ate ice-cream. After finally sitting in an authentic looking American bar and listening to some cool blues as a bonus we all made our way down to the pier to watch the fireworks, before going for a Chinese meal and a taxi home.
We all collapsed into our beds at half past midnight, with Amy panicking and worrying because she was too tired to brush her teeth!
