Lost: A Clueless Dragon in Baltimore, MD

After contemplating on whether I should just fork out USD100+ for a GPS unit or USD60 for a prepaid phone line with data plan, I finally decided to go with the bloody prepaid. And damn well I did, because Google Maps with Navigation is kicking Garmin, TomTom, Papago and whatever dedicated GPS out there in their hinds! The only drawback is that it gobbles up quite a lot of data, and I have a feeling that getting it to navigate to New York would most probably use up the 100MB data limit.

And with Google Navigation my confidence in driving around increased ten-folds, and so I decided to drive myself about 20 miles to the city of Baltimore. Baltimore is a seaport city, and it turns out that it is actually one of the largest cities in the US. Hence one couldn’t blame me if I find the place rather intimidating at first. Well, imagine yourself a clueless Indonesian just fresh out of the boat, and you had to navigate yourself in the city of Kuala Lumpur…

And thus I restricted my plan to just the Inner Harbor, arguably the most popular tourist spot around. Google Maps took me to a parking lot called Pier V, and there was plenty of space. And I soon would know why.

I got out at 1245, and I started walking around the harbor snapping pictures from my trusty Atrix. Seriously, the Motorola Atrix has got to be the best piece of technology I ever bought! It is practically the Swiss-Army knife of gadgets unlike a certain overpriced rotten fruit thingy which seems to work best on Angry Birds and little else. xD

It then started to rain lightly. I wouldn’t bother detailing what I did or where I went to, suffice to say that I walked as far as my legs could take me, saw whatever it was there is to see, snap pictures wherever I thought my wife would want me to, went to the Gallery (shopping place, what else?),looked around, had lunch, and walk some more. Awek awek US ni boleh tahan gak... yums lolxD.

It was almost 1500 hours when I decided I have seen enough and I dragged my tired feet back to the parking lot. I inserted the bloody ticket and voila… USD20!!! Holly effing crap, Batman! No wonder the bloody parking lot was half empty; nobody in their right mind would pay USD20 for 3-hours of parking! Turn out that USD20 is the flat rate for 24-hours of parking. Oh well, bloody hell.

I bought 2 slices of cheese pizzas for dinner, and then retreated back to my lair dungeon room. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and I have a feeling that Monday is a public holiday, but I’m not sure yet too proud to ask. I guess I’ll just get to the office on Monday and go home if there’s no one around. Right now I just want to finish this entry, lie down and enjoy the bloody TV until my wife and kids wake up on the opposite side of the world for our daily Skype routine.

But seriously, USD20 for parking?? God… I should give myself a kick in the butt.