I walked to Mass on Sunday morning.  Under the sky scrapers, many homeless were sleeping on the cement, some amidst the giant pillars of a beautiful building.  It reminded me of the ever growing gap between the rich and poor in our country and the stark contrast between their lives.  

Mass was interesting.  There were five priests there, as this is the center of an archdiocese.  The readings were largely about marriage and the priest gave a wonderful homily.  He said that back in the 70's he would tell people in marriage prep that 75% of Catholics never get divorced while this number is close to 50% in the general US population.  Unfortunately, people have changed and today the number for Catholics borders closely with that of the general population.  He mentioned John Paul II's Theology of the Body and possibly unknowingly implied one reason why many people have changed by highlighting Jesus' quote about letting the children come to Him.  Then again, maybe he knew exactly what he implied.  

After mass, my Mom's friend, Tammy, picked me up to see Baltimore with some of her in-laws.  She showed us the little communities centered on different immigrant cultures and took us to the 30-somethingith floor of the Transamerica building where she works.  

 The harbor

 The stadiums of the Orioles and Ravens.  

 Fort McHenry where they flew the flag that Francis Scott Key wrote the "Star-Spangled Banner" about.  

 Tammy and her cousin-in-law, Lauren

 The Key Bridge, which is about where Key was when he wrote the poem.  

 Micheal Jackson made with pop-cans.  

 Ducks and a jelly fish.  

 The "Power Plant" Barnes and Noble, which originally was a power plant.  

 A fun pirate ship.  

 Today, I'm at Johns Hopkins and I've moved into a nice apartment down the street.  The people are nice here and I love it.  My desk has a pretty view of Baltimore.  They do a lot of research here, especially on HIV.  In fact, the office I'm in is right next to a retrovirus lab.  They get all kinds of lab animals here.  Yesterday, we necropsied a macaque in the BL3 room.  They also have an excellent combined residency and PhD program here, although the residency has only a year of intense, largely self-driven study.  And here's a fun fact for you--they do face transplants on pigs here.  Frankenstein style, they literally take the face off of one pig, bone, cartilage and all, and use hardware to plate it on another.  Eventually, they will hopefully be able to do this for people that have been in car accidents and such.  

A woman from Italy sits at the desk next to mine and we were commiserating about jet lag.  I told her that I got up at 5:30 and that was progress for me.  I really like getting up early but 5 am is a little extreme.  

 The view from my apartment.