Sweet Home Baltimore

On Saturday, my husband and I were driving to Chipotle on Charles Street to feed our starving move-in crew (five very generous friends) when he turned to me and said, “This is my fifth time to Baltimore.”

Shesh! How could I relocate my husband to a place he’s only visited four times before loading up the 10-foot moving truck and barreling down the interstate with all of his life possessions?

I take solace in knowing that he moved sight unseen from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., three years ago when he began his doctoral program.

He’ll be fine. I hope.

After working in the city for nearly four months, Baltimore already feels like home to me, and I really, really want it to feel the same way to him. He’ll still be commuting to Washington a few days a week, so the move was to accommodate my work and allow us to have a larger place with dedicated office space for my husband to write his dissertation.

Right now Baltimore is an adventure for both of us, where very simple things make for great rewards. Like realizing that The Brewer’s Art has an extended happy hour on Mondays. And finding a grocery store. (The Safeway in Charles Village is way nicer than the one by our old place, and it has a mural overlooking its parking lot.)

Thankfully, the Bolton Hill neighborhood where we’re living makes things a bit easier for us. It has a website with a lot of information helpful for new residents, including a listing of the area’s merchants like b, a bistro I’ve been told is stellar, and the On the Hill Café and Market, which looks cute.

It sounds like the Maryland Institute College of Art is pretty generous to its neighbors, too, and as an art lover, I’m glad it’s a stone’s throw away. Maybe we’ll buy something created by one of its students to grace our very large, very white, and currently very naked walls that scream “give us something to wear!”

I think art on the walls could go a long way into making a house (or apartment) into a home, which is our other current objective.

What are your suggestions for making a city or new place a home?