Downtown Baltimore

So last night was an absolute BLAST. My best friend ended up being able to come (YAY)so we had 8 hot chicas on our way to our awesome city's Inner Harbor. The night started around 7 with Dasha searching out the signs on the drive down (we live about 20-30 minutes north of the city). Of course, the rest of us knew where we were going so it was fun to watch her face. Well, as soon as we entered downtown, the volume in the vehicle (that's for you Mel) got higher and higher. Squealing, pointing, oohing and aaahing... you name it - whatever you as a tourist have done or what you have seen tourists do, especially US first timers, they did it. It was soo sweet, funny but I think most of all refreshing. So we parked and on the walk to the Cheesecake Factory, the girls were camera happy. "Make of picture of me here... in front of this... OH, here... oh PLEASE, PLEASE make me a picture of this". So cute. I don't know how but we finally made it to the restaraunt. So the plan was to put our name in at Cheesecake Factory and then decide what we wanted to do. The wait was for 1.5 to 2 hours!! But what else could you expect on a Friday night, right?

So we met together and talked for few minutes on some of our options... paddle boats, walking to see all the shops, aquarium... Decision time. Melissa took 4 of the girls to go walking around and I took Dasha and Julia to do the paddle boats. OMG I was so nervous because Dasha is a "rocker" and I know she would not mind getting a little wet. With the threat of death looming over her head, Dasha behaved and we paddled (actually THEY paddled) and enjoyed the setting of the sun. Aah, such a beautiful time. Our 30 minutes was up so we headed back and I went inside CF to see how long our wait was. Still about an hour. So we walked down a little ways to where there was a circle of people around these amazing young girls who were making the most beautiful music on drums and other things (I'll have to ask Mel what exactly it was because she knows everything about that stuff). We watched and danced and laughed. The girls kept saying "thank you Tina"... it's gonna be hard to send these kids home, I'll tell ya. Oh but they also kept saying "sorry Tina, we're going home to pack up our stuff and moving here". Ha ha! So much love!

It was coming close to that time where we might actually get seated so we headed back to wait for our buzzer to bzzz. While we were waiting we decided to take some photo ops and ha ha, while I was taking a picture of the girls, some guy walked behind me slowly and said "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN" while motioning to my butt with his hands. Apparently his eyes were on my lower parts the entire time he walked away. The hysterical part is that I was OBLIVIOUS to it all!!!!! My friends had to tell me why they were CRACKING UP while I was taking their picture. Isn't that a riot? Yup, I STILL got it... hahahahahahahaha. Moving on.

A little bit more time has passed and finally we're being seated. I'm gonna ffwd to the food. I got the fish and chips and have NO idea how many points (someone HELP) but asked for a box at the beginning so I could pack away half, actually 3/4 of the fish and 1/2 of the fries. The cheesecake I got was better than sssssssssssssssssssandwiches! Brownie sundae cheesecake... I ate about 5/6ths of it which I figure is about 20 points worth. I had 10 points left from my day and 28 flex points so I think it's safe to say that I cleaned house last night. I'm going to stay OP for the rest of this week (start over Tuesday) just so I don't blow it. I didn't count activity or anything.. we did a few hours of walking at least. If someone has a better calculation on what I ate, let me know!

We had one more stop to make before the night was over. We piled in the car, drove to Fell's Point and did some more walking and people watching. There was a dance school set up in the center of the little park area and the students (presumably) were giving us a ballroom show. Pretty cool. We did a little bit more walking by all the closed shops and then stopping for a while by the water. We just sat there taking pictures, watching the boats, enjoying the moment. It was such a great time! Our exotic supermodels had attracted a bunch of attention (to say the least). I felt so young again and my bff and I kept joking that all the stares we were getting, some were actually for us too. But hey, I think out of the 100's of guys that checked them out, at least 1 kinda glanced our way too. HEE HEE.

The night ended back at my house at 2AM (thanks Mel for driving!!!!) with the girls all hugging and saying "thank you so much Tina for this night" just inside the front door. I am so happy that I could be a part of this experience. Aaah, I feel my eyes tearin' up a little. Ok, sorry this post was so long and if I bored some with my long recaps. Just wanted to share my day w/ ya'll. Hope you're havin' a great weekend!

ps. Once Mel uploads the pictures from her camera, I'll get a few on my site.