Will Pikus Travel Blog WR-355-01

 My time in Baltimore has been an absolute blast. If you asked me to leave a note to the person who will inevitably follow in my foot steps, this is what I would say: Enjoy it. It goes faster than you can imagine.      The first thing I always recommend to people coming to Baltimore for the first time is the harbor. It has some of the best food on the East coast in my opinion. The bars in the harbor are decent too. It's different from what I'm used to since I grew up in the New Jersey/New York area.      Obviously, I would also recommend trying crabs smothered in Old Bay and butter. If you look back at the rest of my blog posts, Maryland crabs are mentioned a few too many times. There's plenty of  restaurants where these can be procured, but the best ones I've ever had aren't even from Baltimore.      I can remember  finding the best crabs I've ever tasted all the way out on St Michael's on the Eastern shore. Though i...

 As I reflect on all of my time in Baltimore, there are many smells and food that come to mind.  When in the right areas, you can smell the scent of a bakery making fresh bread. You can also smell the scent of burgers roasting at a high temperature on a grill. There are many smells that remind me where I am, but the one that strikes me the most is Old Bay seasoning.      Old Bay seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices that first came together in Baltimore more than seventy-five years ago. Since then, it's become a staple in our city's dishes,  particularly in crabs. The smell of Old Bay is present all throughout Baltimore. From the bustling sea food market near the harbor to the quiet neighborhoods in the suburbs, Old Bay is there.      Though Old Bay comes from Maryland, I've been  well acquainted with it for a while now. I find the smell to be overwhelmingly pleasant. It reminds me of family barbecues I grew up going to at the Ne...

       The food in Maryland is decent. For the sake of my reader, I'm going to try and avoid writing about crabs in this post. Crabs have been the subject of my blog for the past few posts. It is becoming far too tiring to think up different ways to come up with different ways to describe the taste and texture of our favorite blue crustacean.      Food in New Jersey is anything but healthy. It certainly tastes good, but people really forget that they need to take care of themselves. The fast paced lifestyle leaves no room for any thought of a healthy meal. Everyone from my hometown typically lived in town but worked in New York  City which is about and hour and ten minutes away from us.      This long commute usually leads everyone to eat a quick pork roll egg and cheese on their way to the train station. The pork roll sandwich is famous as a New Jersey staple. Some people refer to pork roll as Taylor ham. T...

       As a Senior in college, I've been in Baltimore for a long time at this point. I've been to an incredible amount of restaurant. I've even worked in a few of them. From my time working in these places, I've gathered that people native to Baltimore are far different than the New Yorkers I grew up around.      The worst place I ever worked was a crab house just North of Baltimore. I'm told that their crabs were voted "the best in Maryland" but from what I could tell, those crabs came from the same ocean as all the others. There wasn't anything particularly special about them at all.      Conrad's Crabs may not have been special, but it sure was famous. The place was filled to the brim with people every day trying to get their crabs before we ran out for the day. I could never get over the barbaric method used to cook the crabs. Throwing live animals in a steaming tank and closing the lid just seems so heartless to ...

 Throughout my life, I've traveled to many places. I've traveled up and down the East coast more times than I can count. I've even left the coast and gone out west a few times. I've also been to a few European countries. Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic all have fantastic food. So do all of the places in the U.S.   The one thing I've tried in Maryland that I just cannot get my mind off of is the hamburger from Alonso's which is just down on W Coldspring lane. The restaurant itself is a complete hole in the wall. For my first 3 years at Loyola, I didn't even know Alonso's existed. Sure I had passed it a few times, but I honestly just assumed it was one of the many liquor stores in the area.  I first went to Alonso's in August of this school year. My roommates and I were all looking for a place to eat dinner. My direct roommate brought up Alonso's on google, and he told the whole room that it had good reviews. Why not give it a shot? It was a...

      Baltimore is a very influential place. The same can be said for Loyola. Both have ways of changing people in such a way that we would never expect. I came to Baltimore as an inflexible kid from New Jersey. I hadn't decided on a major, I was simply in school because that's just what people do after they graduate high school. I really didn't have anything to aspire to. That would all change when I really got into my first college class.     The first class I took was an intro English class. I had never expressed an interest in English before, but I was taking it to fulfill the core requirement. It wasn't until we started reading Breakfast at Tiffany's  that I discovered that not only did I love to read, I wasn't awful at writing essays either. From my freshman year on, I was an English major. And I've absolutely loved every second of it.      The city of Baltimore has also influenced my lo...