So no one else has blogged it yet, so I guess I’ll have to do the honors. This weekend Erik, Tiffanie, Kynthia, and I went to St. Louis to celebrate the freedom that comes from finishing one’s capstone project. Also, Kynthia has been meaning to drag as many of us to The ‘Lou for a while now, so that we could experience for ourselves the wonders of the City Museum, not to mention the other sites in the city.
After a long day of capstone presentations on Friday, we headed out to StL on Saturday morning, and were just outside the city by the early afternoon. Suddenly, as we approached the city, Tiffanie (who was the courteous driver, btw) had a hunger for some donuts. Not just any old donuts, though, since apparently Tif only eats Dunkin Donuts. Kynthia quickly Googled, and after a short detour, we approached the nearest Dunkin we could find, only to realize that it wasn’t a Dunkin Donuts at all! Instead, we found Donut House, a local donut eatery that seemed to have taken on the exact identity of Dunkin Donuts…only with an alternate name. Weird…it turns out they didn’t want to pay franchise dues, or something like that, so they kept the color scheme and decorations, but ditched the dough, coffee, and brand name. The donuts were great, nonetheless.
As we entered the city, we passed an event that we didn’t know would be happening: RibFest! This was essentially an even where American Americans could come together to enjoy our nation’s favorite pasttime: eating. It was fun, though a little pricey, and had to be seen to be believed. I ate brisket while the others chose to share ribs (which, due to my non-pork eating status, I was unable to savor). The food was fantastic, and the event itself was rather interesting.
After RibFest, I chowed down a pack of Tums (who are coincidentally event sponsors), and we headed to the City Museum. The City Museum is, quite simply, a building made of AWESOME with a buch of SWEETNESS inside (and out). Basically, it’s a place where old, unusable stuff that a city can generate is recycled into a big huge giant playground for kids and adults. Old scrap metal, airplanes, pipes, and tubes become bridges, paths, tunnels, and slides that even the biggest kid can play around in. It was unbelievable…and fun times were had by all, despite sore muscles and bruised knees that resulted. (If you go to the City Museum, wear knee pads and old clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty.)
At the museum we saw a one man circus that was also awesome. This guy did great math tricks, including reciting the value of Pi to the 314th decimal place, and squaring numbers that were 4 digits long! Oh, and he also juggled.
After the museum, we were all rather tired (though maybe I should only speak for myself), but were hungry enough to head to Denny’s. I had largely forgotten about the middle-of-the-night amazingness that Denny’s is. A place with a full menu at 2 am is quite rare, and I appreciated my cinnamon-apple stuffed pancakes at that early hour. After our post-midnight snack we headed to the ol’ Holiday Inn for a night of zzz’s, which was quite well deserved.
In the morning we headed to breakfast to eat Pecan Pancakes…I forgot the name of the restaurant, but it was also great. I haven’t yet mentioned that Kynthia was an amazing tour guide…all her recommendations worked out fantastically. Thanks, K!
Finally, we descended upon the St. Louis Arch, so we could take a ride to the top. Riding up the arch is kind of interesting. They put you in groups of 5, and all 5 people cram into little pods that ascend the arch at vertical and horizontal angles (kind of). By the time you get to the top, you are ready to see what made the ride worth it. It was worth it, indeed. We got a great view of the city out of the tiny plastic windows.
After the Arch, we headed home. All in all, a great weekend. To check out my pictures, go to Flickr!