Tourism at its Finest

well, i ended up not even turning on my computer for the whole weekend. i think i turned it on once looking for a song - but no typing or blogging was accomplished. friday night after work i left straight for st. louis, making it there by about 9:45 pm. got checked in to our hotel, and waited on the reverend. he got to the hotel about an hour later, and we went and got steak n shake for a late late dinner - the only thing open around there that late, and right across from the hotel so it didn't demand much effort on our part.the next day we got an early start on being tourists, making it to downtown and the gateway arch by 10:30 or so. we spent a significant part of our walk to the arch looking for starbucks, talking about starbucks, whispering about whether or not we should ask that couple where they got their starbucks, and NOT FINDING A STARBUCKS. lame. i have never seen a business district that is lacking several hotspots for caffeine, but now st. louis has become the first.

despite not starting our day out with significant amounts of caffeine, we went on to have a blissful day of touring the city, following the arch with lunch at union station and the afternoon at the botanical gardens. the weather was perfect, the sights were gorgeous and relaxing, and the company was awesome. then we followed it up with a glammed-up dinner out at a restaurant called savor, a fantastic place that had the best bruschetta i've ever had and a really good amaretto sour. all in all our first day tearing across st. louis was a huge success, and i'll write about the second full day and our brief half-day this morning tomorrow. i would give a lot to be able to record saturday and be able to replay it in real time and kind of act it out over and over and over...although i might get in trouble with that since i'd just be slipping away from work to do that all the time.