I had to drop my mom off at the BWI airport in baltimore, today :( I was really sad to see her go, and i wish we had gotten to do a lot more while she was up here. After I dropped her off, I ventured out into baltimore to check out a few places I had mentally bookmarked.

the first place i went was Red Emma’s coffeehouse. It’s a small, underground, anarchist-punk-rock coffeehouse that serves vegan/vegetarian food, coffee, tea, and sells a lot of cool books. They also have public computers that are free to use for internet browsing. named after activist emma goldman, this place is definitely very grassroots, & a brewing place for some very quirky & interesting people. I walked in, and kind of fumbled around, not knowing what to do first… so i started looking at books. I ended up buying Soy! not Oi! (a vegan cookbook), and after i found that, i sat at the bar area. the barista was very friendly and kind of reminded me of steve carell in appearance and personality. haha! I ordered a cup of tea, & a bahn mi chai (lemongrass version of a vietnamese tofu sandwhich)… and through ordering, i found out that they were out of a lot of stuff (i ended up getting my bahn mi on a bagel, instead of a bun)… but i’ll just give them a break, considering it was sunday evening, and the type of smaller cafe it was (i’ve worked in one similar, in which we ran out of stuff a lot). So i enjoyed my bahn mi on a bagel, and sipped on my peppermint tea… and just kind of listened in on interesting conversations around me. the food was good, not great, but what i really enjoyed was the atmosphere. I ordered a vegan rootbeer float to-go, and enjoyed that on my drive to my next destination.

atomic books- i had first heard of this place, because i saw a girl walking around the japanese street fest in DC with a cute cram cream tote bag. I asked her if she got it at the fest, and she told me she got it at a place called “Atomic Pop”. So i did some research, and turns out that there are two stores that are collectively owned, one being Atomic Pop, and the other being Atomic Books. They’re right down the street from one another; Atomic Books is an AWESOME book store. i found so many books i wanted, but ended up leaving with only Veganomicon. Then, I headed down to Atomic Pop, and i felt like i was in a huge toy box when i entered. A lot of kid Robot stuff, some re-ment goodies, cram cream stuff, and even some plushies from my friend heidi! I bought one of her new yummy breakfast keychains, and ironically enough(being that i’m a barista), i got the coffee cup! yay! i also bought a REALLY cute cram cream bento, that i’ll post a picture of soon enough. They had tons of modern crafting books, from people like jenny hart, etc. I really loved both shops. The area that they’re in is super cute, too. tons of interesting boutiques with similar cutesy items. A store called red tree that has a lot of cool interior decor stuff. Even an organic salon, called “Sprout“! I need to return when i have more time to look around.

Baltimore stole my heart today. :)