Tuesday, January 29th - 8:38 PM:
I have been waiting to tell you about some of the details of my winter break. You know, they gave us five weeks off from nursing school! Most of that time my family spent right here in our new hometown of Baltimore. We slept in every morning and snuggled in big piles on our bed. It was during that time off that we discovered the American Museum of Visionary Art I told you about. It sits right at the Northeastern corner of Federal Hill on the south side of the harbor. We also visited Fort McHenry, a place that needs no explanation. But we also took a road trip...
One week we traveled down to North Carolina where my wife's brother lives with his family. Well, we had a ton of fun there, which included more late morning snuggle piles (with the cousins), adventures in the Duke University Botanical Gardens (so nice, even in winter - they have a great carnivorous plant garden), the Museum of Life Science with the black bears, wolves and the most fascinating tropical butterfly house with a place you can actually watch butterflies and moths as they emerge from their chrysalis...so much fun stuff. Matt and I even walked over to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill one evening to the Local 506 (an interesting little music venue) and caught a great band called The Moaners.
But one of the things I deeply appreciate about my brother-in-law Matt's hospitality is his passion for cooking. We ate like Royalty the entire time and one of the highlights was his truly authentic, made from scratch, Chicago style pizza...
This was sooo tasty I still find myself salivating as I recollect the experience.
He made three of them, filled with fresh veggies, several different types of cheese, turkey sausage, homemade sauce and all lovingly placed in a beautifully handcrafted crust. You know it's the love that makes the best food taste so good.
We also found ourselves, one evening just as the sun was setting, out in the country somewhere near Chapel Hill by a dairy that had a little shop where they sold ice cream that they made in small batches from the milk their cows gave on their farm right across the road. I am glad I don't live near this place! And while we were there a local farmer pulled up offering wagon rides with his team of two majestic, white Percheron draft horses.
After our time in Chapel Hill we headed out to the coast, near Washington, NC to visit some other good friends where we found ourselves digging up sharks' teeth, doing a little back woods target practice with a good old Winchester 30/30 lever action, an 8mm Mauser, and your standard 12 gauge side by side. Afterwards we broke out the guitars, banjo and ukulele and ended up recording about a four hour jam session. If I can get a copy of the edited audio file and figure out how to post a sample I will.
All of this reminiscence is therapeutic for me as I settle down from a very dense day, at JHU SON - but full of wonder nonetheless. We had a five hour pharmacology lecture today (interrupted by a welcome 1 hour lunch break). Our first pharm exam is next week. You won't be hearing from me until I come out of the woodwork after that one.
I am counting down the hours until Thursday morning at 7:00 AM when I will be back at Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) in labor and delivery...I can't wait.
Well, keep checking for updates, I will back soon with more of the scoop.
Cheers,
Daniel