Dear readers, I continue to introduce you to excerpts from my book "Angels drink milk".
A few dark-skinned girls were dancing twerk[1] on the pavement to music that sounded like "Boom-boom-boom." In general, the Harbor embankment was renovated into a promenade only recently (around 1980-s), before that there were port docks, which were boring and unsafe to walk on. But now it was a very busy and interesting place, lit up in the evening by hundreds of streetlights and advertising signs.
The city outskirts looked quite gray and boring,
but against the background of skyscrapers stood out interesting buildings, for
example, a colorful building of a former factory, converted into an
entertainment complex. A huge guitar on one of a building side invited
passersby to one of the most popular theme restaurants in the world "Hard
Rock Café".
It's not without a reason that
in America Baltimore is considered a "gray"
and criminal city, in many cases there are good reasons for such a fame.
However, this cannot be said about the whole Baltimore, there are places that
differ in comfort and peacefulness. For example, a historical quarter Mount Vernon, that in its design
resembled old European towns. In the central square of the quarter, it was fun:
here and there children scurried around on skateboards; people were taking
photos near a huge round gray stele on top of which stood a small statue and
near the monument to the national hero riding a dashing horse. Looking at her
phone with its built-in navigator, Jin Ho realized that it was a Monument to George Washington. The
monument in honor of the first President of the United States was completed in
the first half of the nineteenth century and has a height of 62 meters. This is
the first monument to the President in America. That column is the main historical
monument of Baltimore, inside which the Washington Museum is located on the
first floor, and from there a spiral staircase leads up to the observation
platform. The girl took the opportunity to climb the stairs, and was amazed by
the magnificent view of the Harbor and the entire city from a bird's-eye view.
Next to the stele and the
Washington Monument was another very notable historic building, Peabody Conservatory. It was founded by
philanthropist George Peabody in
1857. During the classes at the medical University they heard about this
educational institution: due to the American Civil War, the completion of
this Greek-Italian building and the opening of the Conservatory were delayed
until 1866. In the following years, thanks to the efforts of famous composers,
conductors, and other figures in the field of musical creativity, the Institute
grew from a small local Academy to a Conservatory known throughout the world.
The requirements for applicants and graduates are very high. Since 1977, the
Peabody Conservatory has been included in the John Hopkins University, where Jin
Ho had been studying at that time.
The monument to the national
hero on a dashing horse according to Google maps turned out to be a statue of
Major General Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette in memory of the long US-French
military mutual aid. He headed detachments of French volunteers in the struggle
for American independence in 1777.
In general, the Central part
of the Mount Vernon quarter was full of statues: both with images of people and
animals. For some reason, Jin Ho liked a lion sculpture, with which she took a
selfie. Also nearby was a beautiful fountain with a statue of the Greek Cupid
in the center of it. The girl did not take photos near the fountain and the
statue of Cupid: the sculptor too openly depicted all his anatomic details, as
if he was looking up to Italian David's
statue[2]. The building of United Methodist Church caught her eye.
The Church, built at the end of the 19th century, pierced the sky with its
spire to a height of exactly 62 meters: to build anything higher than the
monument to George Washington was officially banned. It was no longer
surprising that the Foundation of the church was made of red brick, the most
affordable material in the "industrial" city.
Among the tenements of Mount
Vernon dated back to the beginning of the 20th century, there were very
interesting buildings in the Art Nouveau style that looked incredible in the
pictures, but Jin Ho had only time to get some snacks and get to the theater.
The girl had dinner in a Chinese cafe. For dinner, she paid $7, which included
a huge plate of seafood soup, a similar plate of rice with vegetables and beef,
and a teapot of tea. The invariable fortune cookie for tea with giving her a
reason to think: "You need to take a break and prepare for the fateful
meeting." She wondered what that means.
On the narrow streets on the
way to the theater, she repeatedly met groups of homeless people: she tried not to pay attention to these marginal
groups. This picture was normal for Baltimore, as for America as a whole.
America in this regard is an amazing country: insane luxury and fabulous prices
are combined with African poverty.
[1]Twerk is a dance in which the
movements of the buttocks and thighs are actively used.
[2] David is a masterpiece of
Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian
artist Michelangelo. David is a 5.17-metre marble statue of the Biblical figure
David, a favored subject in the art of Florence.
