If the midwest was a different country I would be such a worldly traveler
My holiday season was pretty enjoyable. I did the Jewish thing on christmas, seeing Charlie Wilson's War and eating chinese, and I spent the first few seconds of 2008 in a car with one of my friends driving back from downtown Milwaukee. The two days before new years I was in Chicago with fellow camel Emily Gagen! We spent the day in downtown Chicago eating lunch and walking down michigan avenue, the major shopping street in chi-town. For those east coasters that haven't been to Chicago, or think there is nothing but farm land in the midwest, I would recommend Chicago. It's way big and cleaner than New York (sorry New York) with plenty of awesome museums, restaruants and music venues. The Shedd Aquarium is the biggest indoor aquarium in the world, and the house of blues is an awesome place to eat dinner and watch live music. Okay, I'm done selling Chicago now, but if anyone is interested in finding things to do there just ask (or look online...)!
Next, I spent about 5 days in Baltimore with my brother who is one of the head assistant coaches for the UMBC college swim team and the retrievers swim club. Although I spent a lot of time with him at the pool, we did explore Baltimore a little bit. I have to say, this city needs a little more credit. Anything from center city over to federal hill and locust point is really really nice. The city has cleaned up really well over the past several years and maintains an east coast, harbor city, colonial charm. The neighborhoods outside the downtown area are packed with rowhouses that are brand new or in the process of being renovated. There are plenty of nice bars and restaraunts to hang out at with a pretty young crowd.
If you're around either of these cities and you don't venture into them too often I would recommend you give them retry!
Anyway, I'm back in philly now...lovely lovely philly. It's rainy and cloudy, and rainy and cloudy does not look good on philly. But, on a more serious note, has anyone heard about the cycle of sunspots and how we're about to go into a global cooling cycle that we haven't seen since the 1780s? I read an article about it, but it has not been on the news....Looks like northeastern weather is only going to get better! I'm sure there are some camels out there involved in environmental stuff that could tell me more about this! Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday.