A News Editor at The Huffington Post, Caroline Weller is a Baltimore native and fan. She takes time out of her busy days working with this site's video team to support her beloved Ravens, who will play in the Super Bowl this Sunday in New Orleans. If you are from or fond of San Francisco, she'd probably be a good person to avoid right about now.
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Dear Baltimore,
I know you. I know you are more than The Wire. I know you are more than Hairspray. Your Aquarium may be amazing, but I know you are more than that too.
Girls who grow up in Baltimore love it; they have it their souls. They have spent their summers days in Herring Run, in the heavy heat. They have watched the movies on the wall in Little Italy. They've smelled the melting tar on Fleet Street.
To really know Baltimore is to know a Hon -- a real one -- who loves you and cooks you crab cakes without breading. Baltimore love is snow-balls covered with melted marshmallow. It's the Domino's sign. It's knowing where not to go.
Baltimore, your eccentricities are myriad: fries with vinegar instead of ketchup, Old Bay on everything, Berger cookies, Utz, Natty Boh beer and Maryland Blue Crabs. All of it is so perfectly you and it casts a spell over me.
Baltimoreans ask, "Jeet?" meaning "did you eat yet?" or, "Goin' downy o-cean?" wondering if a beach weekend is in the works. (It always is.) The odd accent fills me with joy and makes me feel like I'm sitting on my grandparents stoop on Kenyon Avenue drinking a Coke in the shade.
A Baltimore girl will defend the Birds through it all and a Baltimore girl bleeds purple, even when we aren't on our way to the Super Bowl, which -- by the way -- we are.
When I left you behind, my heart broke and after all these years it has never fully healed. I know I'll be back for good someday and that's when this Baltimore girl will be whole again. If you need me then, you'll find me sitting at The Barn, at a table covered in brown paper, cracking crabs with my family.
Much Love Always,
Caroline