Text 26351, 77 rader
Skriven 2009-07-23 09:38:46 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
Ärende: Otakon/Baltimore 3
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On Saturday, Lynn had a photoshoot at 1100 for people cosplaying 
characters from Namco Bandai's "Tales Of" videogame franchise - she was 
dressed as Raven from Tales of Vesperia [once again, if I seem to 
be speaking a foreign language, there is tons of info online about all 
this stuff.]

I was up early again, and again made breakfast, this time sausage, hash
brown potatoes, eggs and toast.  Got everyone fed and Maryanne, the kids,
and I were on our way to Baltimore on time and on schedule.

Interestingly enough, the Side Quest Machine sent us to Baltimore via
highways this time and it ended up taking a few minutes longer than the
side street/county road route it sent us on the day before.  Go figure.
We dropped off Lynn and Nicky at the doors of the Convention Center, then
parked the car closer to the waterfront.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor is mostly a thing of beauty, a mixture of 
renovated 19th-century warehouses and modern construction.  There are
places to sit and watch people and marine traffic go by, lots of places
to eat, and lots of places to do stuff.  We hung around in the shade of
the Visitor Center until our Duck Tour vehicle came to pick us up a 
little after noon.  The Duck Tour - an amphibious ride around downtown
and circumnavigating the Inner Harbor on a replica DUKW amphibious 
vehicle - was interesting but overpriced and excessively obnoxious
with loud disco music blaring from onboard speakers and loud, mostly
unfunny, and annoying commentary by the driver/tourguide.  Next time,
we're going to use the Water Taxi, which is 1/3 the price and offers
unlimited usability all day, with stops at many locations around the
harbor.

Our initial plan was to hop on the Water Taxi after the Duck Tour and
find a crab shack for lunch, but thanks to traffic and an unscheduled
stop to let some whining moron and her two sprogs disembark, the 70-
minute tour turned into a 140-minute trip through Purgatory.  We got
back to the dock and cooled off with some delicious Italian Ice from
Oasis in the Light Street Pavillion, then strolled the elevated 
skywalk to the Convention Center, where Lynn's second photoshoot
was starting.  By the time the shoot was done, over an hour later,
it was after 1800 and we were all ready to head back to the Shipp's.

Saturday night, we had supper at Cheeburger Cheeburger, a growing
chain of burger restaurants in the currently popular "nostalgia/
gourmet" category.  Their slogan is "Bigger is Better" and they 
offer burgers in sizes ranging from a quarter of a pound up to 
a full pound in size.  The "reward" for being able to eat a 
16-ounce burger is your photo pinned up on a bulletin board in 
the store; I didn't see much of a benefit to that, so I stuck
to the more comfortably sized half-pounder with bacon and cheese.
No one was dissatisfied with their burgers, and we were well 
pleased with the better-than-average onion rings and good-as-
average french fries.  Cheeburger's other claim to fame is their
"build your own" milkshake: Choose any flavor of ice cream or
combo of flavors, and they will whip it into a milkshake for you.
Dale and Gail split a chocolate raspberry (very good) and Lynn
had a chocolate gingerbread cookie dough (marvelous flavor, but
strange with small pellets of gingerbread dough resembling deer 
turds throughout.)

One other thing worth mentioning about Cheeburger Cheeburger:
Egg creams.  They make a very good classic egg cream with just
the right balance of milk, chocolate, and seltzer.  I'd go there
again just for that.  And get some onion rings while I was at it.





---
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Restaurant Reviews.

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 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)