Will Pikus Travel Blog WR-355-01

       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...

     On March 29th, I was born in Summit, New Jersey in the year 2000. I was the first of my family (which consists of 6 cousins and a sister) to be born outside the state of New York. Coincidentally, I was also the first to not be delivered by the same doctor who delivered all of Mick Jagger's children in New York. This is a chip I've had on my shoulder ever since I heard about it at age 14.      While I was born in Summit, my family had recently moved to Westfield, New Jersey. Westfield is a town less than a mile from the place where I was born. I had been living in New Jersey ever since I was born. Needless to say, the urban Baltimore is so incredibly different from the suburbs of New Jersey   Growing up in the suburbs I something that most people view as luxurious Since I've lived there all my life, I can tell you one thing about it. It is BORING. For fun, we used to loiter outside of 7/11 and wait for something interesting to happen...