Baltimore

Baltimore is fascinating. We have been living here for three months now. Gabriele has found a job at Johns Hopkins University, so we will stay until late April. Despite the fact, that Baltimoreans (us included) are experiencing the worst winter in ten years, we love it. This city thrives with life. The rebuilding of the Inner Harbor is a wonderful example of what entrepreneurism, a dedicated administration and investors with a vision can achieve. Forty years ago this area was dead: dilapidated warehouses, rickety piers, shipyards with no work. There was a lot of crime and people considered it a war zone.

USS Constellation, built in 1854, last all sail warship surviving the Civil War, now part of the Maritime Museum

LV-116 Lightship Chesapeake, also part of the MM, in front of the Aquarium

The rebuilding campaign started in the sixties and look at that skyline now. The piers are full of people enjoying all the various attractions: museums, the world famous Aquarium, shopping opportunities and restaurants, all built around the Inner Harbor. You can talk to Baltimoreans here, as well as visitors from all over the world. There are huge hotels, banks, investment companies and all sorts of business, workplace for thousands of people.

A lot of effort will be needed for the rest. Behind the glamour, sometimes just a few blocks away, you still find collapsing warehouses, neglected neighbourhoods. Poverty, hopelessness, crime are never far, drugs and HIV serious problems. 65% of the population are African-American and equal opportunity still seems a long way to go... Nonetheless, for a limited time Baltimore has become our home. We are proud, to share the city's belief, that everything can become better, when you only work hard enough....

Aquarium and skyline


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