East of the Sun, West of the Moon

We’re back home now. The distance was certainly not a problem, but the fact that half of it was in pouring rain didn’t help at all. And when I say pour, I really mean pour, the type that makes you want to set your car by the side of the road and take a nap until it’s over, which of course doesn’t work very well when you have two kids in the backseat.

The sushi place on Saturday was Wasabi and it didn’t have a queue outside. The fact that we were there within the first half hour of them opening for the evening probably helped. They certainly didn’t lack customers. Good food, friendly staff, happy couple leaving the place later that evening. We then proceeded to pick up a good bottle of wine (we’re no connoisseurs, so that’s always a long shot) and two glasses to continue celebrating our anniversary.

Sunday afternoon we visited the old courthouse that’s part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial that also includes the arch. Following two separate tour guides around and then some wandering around by ourselves that took almost 3 hours and I learned a little bit more about the history of the US, since the main reason that this courthouse is maintained by the National Park Service is because of the Dred Scott case, that lead to a US Supreme Court decision that hastened the start of the civil war.

Another evening, another restaurant, this time by sheer coincidence we ended up in the Old Spaghetti Factory, where we ate a delicious meal. The couple at the table next to us was less fortunate, their baby daughter didn’t feel well as they were getting ready for dessert and after the wife left the table with her, the husband nearly walked out without his creditcard, his wife’s purse, and the kid’s toy, that’s how out of it he was. Poor guy!

If we read the hotel bill correctly this morning they interpreted our use of Wayport as a $0.75 phonecall. Hey, fine with me, that’s cheaper than $10. Beyond that, all seemed fine and we aren’t missing anything (yet — knock on wood).

So that’s our return visit to St. Louis, 5 years later. We’ll probably go back there again, there’s enough to see for sure and it’s a good way to arrange for the kids to see their other grandparents occasionally.

Greetings from St. Louis!

Note to self, a Honda Civic (two-door model) is not really suitable for a 5-6 hour road trip. We’ll manage, but for an upcoming trip to Colorado we’ll use the minivan, and too bad it’s got worse gas-mileage, it’s still better than any SUV we pass on the way there.

The hotel room is good, nice view on the arch, with a balcony so you can listen to the city sounds from the 23rd floor level without being deafened by them.

While walking around yesterday evening looking for a place to eat, we walked into an artsy store and then found out that every first Friday of the month they had an art walk with a couple other stores/galleries in the area, which would otherwise close at 6. So after actually getting something to eat (at a fairly loud yuppie-attracting place, Mosaic, with good food) we walked around and visited a few of them, and I guess their art walk idea paid off for them because we bought a few items that appealed to us!

The internet connection is through Wayport, unfortunately no free wifi for us this time. Maybe next time. The laptop was misbehaving again so we almost lugged it here for nothing. Unplugging it and briefly taking out the battery seems to have triggered the harddisk into playing nice again, for now, but I don’t know how much longer this piece of hardware will be of any use to me/us. Pity, because I’ve only had it for about 6 months.

And on that note, we’re off to find out if the sushi place nearby will have a long queue or not. See you… Monday evening at the latest.