Things To Do in Maryland

At the age of 14, Baltimore Yoga Village founder Anjali Sunita traveled to India, where she discovered the joys of simple living mixed with the sorrows of yearning for a greater purpose. After years of expanding her education and worldview through reading and the guidance of a college mentor, Anjali found peace within the rigid discipline and spiritual focus of a South Indian ashram. Soon setting her mind to sharing the physical and mental benefits of yoga with others, she taught in private homes and underserved schools before opening her own pair of studios known collectively as Baltimore Yoga Village.

There, a team of certified yoga instructors oversees a supportive community dedicated to peace, health, and spiritual growth. Whereas many studios’ teachers spend too much time teaching students to knit their own mats, Baltimore Yoga Village’s programs focus on the ancient practice of Hatha yoga, which includes deep breathing techniques, yoga postures with attention to physical alignment, and guided relaxation. The staff also leads regular workshops in a variety of topics, from Thai-yoga bodywork to meditation through devotional songs.

The owners of Farashé the Day Spa designed it with the feng shui elements of water, fire, metal, wood, and earth in mind. It makes for a fitting setting, since the treatments that take place there, like feng shui, draw from ancient Eastern healing philosophies. These Ayurvedic treatments range from scalp massages that stimulate the senses to applications of warm oils that separate clients from the lampposts to which they’ve frozen their foreheads. Aestheticians also perform Western spa treatments including facials with Dermalogica or GM Collin products. During body treatments, therapists draw from natural ingredients, such as mineral salts and sea mud, which clients then wash off with a massaging Vichy shower. Treatments take place amid the arched doorways and draped gold silk curtains that mark the spa’s Indian- and Moroccan-influenced decor.

They’re a common food in several Latin countries, including Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, but empanadas are made a bit differently in Argentina. “We have an edge because we actually bake them,” Nicolás Ibarzabal, co-owner of 5411, told the Decider in 2009. ”Here in Chicago there are a couple of places that offer empanadas, but they’re pretty much all deep-fried. We like to think of ourselves as the new healthy frontier of empanadas.”

Along with pals and fellow Buenos Aires natives Mariano Lanfranconi and Andrés Arlia, Ibarzabal makes the flaky baked treats in nearly a dozen varieties. You’ll find traditional hand-cut beef empanadas as well as Americanized versions including barbecue chicken, which Ibarzabal admits is one of his favorites despite chuckles from his Argentine friends. The trio started 5411—a mash-up of Argentina’s country code, 54, and Buenos Aires’s city code, 11—in 2009 as a catering company before rolling out a food truck and finally opening a shop in Lakeview. That shop makes deliveries by the dozen, and the same pale-blue food truck—perhaps the catalyst for 5411’s success—still takes to the streets daily, urging office dwellers to emerge from their cubicles and horses to escape from their buggies.

Running every Saturday in 2012 from May through November, the Briggs Chaney-Greencastle Farmers' Market seeks to provide Silver Springs residents with increased access to fresh and healthy foods. In addition to a selection of local produce, meat, eggs, and cheese, the free-to-enter market hosts a variety of vendors, such as artists, jewelers, and bakers, as well as local chefs who demonstrate simple recipes using local produce and monosyllabic buzz words. To encourage visitors to purchase healthier food, the non-profit farmer's market matches WIC payments dollar-for-dollar, accepts SNAP payments, and matches a portion of Independence card benefits.

The market welcomes children as well, with a range of activities for young ones in its Kids’ Tent. Children can take part in a number of interactive showcases throughout the summer, such as a Railroad Exhibit from the Riverdale Railroad club, puppet theater stories from former Moscow Puppet Theater member Irena Kholodnov, and martial arts demonstrations by the Virginia Kenshinkai School of Budokai. A chess tent lets kids and adults unwind while playing the classic game against friends, family, and Bobby Fischer in disguise. Families may also enjoy live stage music in an audience seating area and feast on their fresh food purchases in a nearby dining tent.

Open year round, Capital Clubhouse is an all-ages, 90,000-square-foot facility wholly dedicated to sports and recreation. The multisport arena can easily transform into a soccer, volleyball, dodge-ball, or inline-hockey court, allowing it to host all manner of team-based events from intramural games to kids' parties. Dasher boards that spent their youth exchanging quick embraces with Washington Capitals players at the former US Airways Arena now comfortably surround Capital Clubhouse's NHL-sized ice arena, which is kept cold year round thanks to 11 miles of underground cooling pipe and a steady diet of popsicles. When not supervising skaters from the comfort of the heated balcony, guests can race lithe mountain goats to the top of the center's 30-foot rock-climbing wall, where five different routes offer challenges for wall walkers of all ages and experience levels.

A golf course is where players go to test their skills, but Arundel Golf Park is where those skills are formed. At Arundel's outdoor facility, instructors teach private and group classes and hold supervised practice sessions, in which they periodically check in with students as they drive ball after ball at a driving range protected from the wind and distracting cries of caddies. During "fitting days," golfers bring in their current clubs to have one of Arundel's pros determine their ideal length, loft, and other specs.

While golf remains the focus at Arundel Golf Park, the facilities have a couple of other ways visitors can work on their swings. An 18-hole mini-golf course shrinks the game down to a fun challenge of angles and finesse, and batting cages let players set aside the elegant, nuanced game of golf to simply enjoy bashing round things with blunt objects.