58. Experience Halloween at the Poe House in BaltimoreI'm so glad I worked up the courage and had the time to go to this! The normal guided tour of the house isn't done during their special event weekends because the house is so small. But I still got to explore the whole house and look at all the displays both before and after the special performance.
First, I was worried about going there on my own because I've felt uncomfortable in that neighborhood before. But when I arrived, there was a police officer standing right there who showed me where to park and said he would be watching the cars while I was inside--so nice! He was also super helpful. He knew all about Poe and Baltimore history/landmarks.
After waiting outside about half an hour, I got to go in and look around. There are several rooms and some really skinny, curved staircases (one that you could only go up to the top of and then there wasn't room to turn around so you had to climb down backwards. I love houses with character like this. There were lots of interesting items including part of the old memorial, china/crystal, papers, books, Poe's lap desk, portraits, and a series of drawings for the Raven (you could read the printout of the poem and go from art piece to art piece to see the framed illustrations of each part). There wasn't much of Poe's things there and certainly none of his furniture (poor Poe; he probably sold it for money). This wasn't the house where he wrote his most famous pieces, but he did write a lot in the house and it was really neat to be walking around in the rooms where he lived and worked and was inspired.
The performance was amazing. The actor performed the Tell-Tale Heart for us. I got chills when he started talking about the eye for the first time. And the emotion he put into it was stupendous. I could really feel everything the character was going through. I remember loving that one when I first read it back in 7th grade; it was wonderful to see it performed by an actor dressed in garb, standing IN Poe's house, wooden floorboards under our chairs *G* What a neat experience!
Afterward, I got directions (once from the curator, and then again from the super nice police officer after I got lost in the neighborhood and had to start all over again) to Poe's Grave site. I met some really neat people there; it was a popular destination this weekend!
I'm so glad I made this one of my things, because if I hadn't, I'm not sure I would have done this. But it was a great experience and something I hope to remember forever.
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