Ahhh, Baltimore. Whatever I was expecting from Baltimore, this was not it. My experiences up until this past weekend had been from the bus terminal, en route to Philadelphia from Washington, DC, passing over it from an aeroplane, and listening to a friend who used to live there talk about how Bal'more was a fallen city. Granted, I did not visit a lot of the city, but I passed through several neighbourhoods heading to various events, and though it may be stretched thin through some areas, a bit careworn and rough around the edges, Baltimore was a whole lot more beautiful than I'd imagined.

The downtown is primarily geared to the tourist market with big attractions such as the Aquarium, historic ships, and sports stadia clustered around the inner harbour (this would be the inner harbour of Chesepeake Bay, by the way). There are trendy, if somewhat silly (what with their ideas of what exactly "proper attire" might be), clubs and restaurants downtown, and expensive hotels. Moving uphill, pretty much straight from the harbour, you find the historical Mount Vernon district, which is full of colonial buildings, antiques and art stores, interesting boutiques, and finer dining establishments. You'll find some bed and breakies in this area, too, which were too expensive for Rick and I to stay in, though we did consider it. In this area, you'll also find the very attractive Walters Art Museum, which though an unassuming contemporary building from the outside, is an airy, esthetically pleasing building on the inside, full of helpful, friendly staff, a lovely gift shop, and extensive collections of fine and cultural arts from around the world. It was also surprisingly large on the inside; in two hours, Rick and I had not seen more than 1/4th of the collection. While we were there, a very good exhibition of George Stubbs' equestrian works was on display.

The Senator Theatre, where Star Wars Revelations had its premier on Saturday night, is in an older neighbourhood that, for those of you familiar with Toronto, is reminiscent of the Yonge and Eglinton area - but the way it was fifteen years ago, with the mom and pop stores and slightly worn, but handsome middle class houses - crossed with Leaside. The Senator Theatre itself is a stately, art deco movie palace, currently in the throes of refurbishment. It has a grand domed loby, a large, semi-circular marquee outside, marble and plaster mouldings, and there's a huge lounging area/powder room attached to the women's washroom. Again, like the Eglinton Theatre or Royal Cinema in Toronto. It boasts a stage as well as a screen, beautiful vintage lighting and decor, and the seats recline, even with a capacity of 900 people. What an incredible venue for a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Rick and I spent our first half-day and full night staying with a friend of ours in Silver Spring, MD, which is actually much closer to Washington than Baltimore. In order to kill time and enjoy the heavenly weather (and to decompress after a stressful, though damned lucky, trip from his parents' to Buffalo to Baltimore, which I will write about later). We drove around the area near by and found a zany antique market-commune-thing in a series of historic homes. We wandered through the maze of shops, each one basically taking up a room in the house, and enjoyed looking at the many weird and wonderful things. Then we went and walked around in a modern inter-faith cemetary/memorial garden where we read markers and enjoyed the cherry trees, which were in full bloom. We also took a drive down a little rural lane that led through horse paddocks, a golf course, beautiful new homes for the wealthy, abandoned fields and out-buildings, and past little eccentric homes in the woods. Dinner, that night, was had at a more-than-adequate Indonesian restaurant where I had Bami Goering, chicken satay, and fried bananas (with powedered sugar on top !!) and Rick shared ristafle with our hostess.

The following day took us to our hotel, which was a bit harder to locate than necessary, as it had just changed from a Holiday Inn Express (what I had booked at) to a Quality Inn (which I did not know about). After some confusion, we figured it out and got our room. To save unnecessary credit card stress, of which I'd already had plenty the day before at the rental car agency (I'm cursed, by the way, for renting cars in Baltimore - never again !), we paid in cash. The hotel was not quite as expected, and frankly, we weren't expecting a whole lot, but the beds were clean, the appliances worked, there was fresh soap and towels, though no face cloths, and a constant supply of fairly tasty apples in the lobby. Unfortunately, it also came with a nearly inexhaustable supply of heavy-drinking Yankees fans in town for the three game series against the Orioles.

We spent Friday afternoon at the aquarium, which was really nice. I could have spent all day watching the rays flap leisurely through the water, and we both enjoyed the dolphins just swimming naturally in their pool, not doing tricks. One of them is extremely pregnant and swam quite stiffly because of her belly getting in the way. Unfortunately, I mixed up our time for dinner, the Revelations art/CG/sound team dinner and we really had to hustle to get there. We ended up stranded in pre-game gridlock for half an hour and had one heck of an expensive cab-ride. Thus, we missed the salad course of the meal, but that's okay. The director, Shane, said many nice things about everyone, though he almost forgot me, but made up for it with sweet words and I forgave him. I met the majority of the CG team, whom I had only known from their websites, their work, and constant emails. Following the meal, we rode around town in a limo watching the Behind the Scenes stuff for our film, stopping to do some bar-hopping, which ultimately was disappointing (jeans, tennis shoes, and cargo pants are not allowed, but it seems ugly Hawai'ian shirts and hideous club wear is considered "proper attire"), and ended up heading up to the Senator to check it out the night before the big event. That last bit was really neat and I think we all enjoyed it the most.

The Saturday took Rick and I to the Walters Art Museum before the premier. I spent an hour applying false nails and painting them before we left, and when we got home, I was already so sick of them, I cut them down to a manageable length before getting dressed. I wore the corset, which apparently most everyone missed, because they were hiding in the VIP room. Their loss. Anyway, it was a red-carpet event and there was a stormtrooper honour guard flanking the carpet and an R2 unit was tootling up and down, beaping merrily. There was press in attendence and the theatre was utterly jammed. Speaches were made, which didn't suck, and Darth Vadar made the announcement about cell phones and whatnot, which was a really nice touch, and then, FINALLY, it was time for the movie.

I won't review it. There are plenty of them already floating around on the Internet and you can download it yourself at the Panic Struck Productions website. It has its flaws, but in the end, it's pretty amazing, considering not a penny was earned in the making of it, nor was a single person paid for their work. I was in divine company, considering the talents of the CG artists, and was amazed by how things ended up. Nothing, however, holds a candle to how I felt when I saw my storyboards come to life on screen. There is one full scene that I saw as my work, and several sequences of shots I recognised right away. And, I must admit, that some of those shots were really good. It was pretty frickin' amazing to see my name scroll up twice in the credits, too, once as costume artist, shared with another, but all alone as the storyboard artist, and THAT was incredible. Sure, no one ooohed and ahhhed at my work like they did the effects, but I knew where my work was and how it was used, and that is what mattered.

I'll stop here, now, and finish my recount of my adventures in Baltimore in my next entry. I still have another project to start (and finish) tonight for tomorrow - the last day of class. So, next time I'll write about the after party, the antics of the CG guys, the Orioles game, our last night staying, once again, with our friend in Silver Spring, the trip home, and the attack of the killer mailbox.