What have I been up to post-Korea?

I'll start a series of posts regaling my activities post-Korea. Third up:

St. Louis
Towards the latter half of September, Liz and I visited Brighton in St. Louis, Missouri. Our original flight there was canceled due to weather, so we had to take an early flight the next day. I'm peeved off at Northwest Airlines because they apparently gave passengers vouchers for $35 off another flight (for the inconvenience), but they never gave me one (Liz got one, which is how I know this). Which really irked me as I'm a member of their stupid frequent flyer program...great to know that being a member of their program makes them treat you worse than other people. Jeepers. Anyway.

While in St. Louis, we went to the science museum and saw 2 omnitheater shows: one on Greece that was kind of stupid, and one about climbing Kilamanjaro, which was pretty good. We then went to the Missouri Botanical Garden.

There was a special exhibit there of a bunch of Chihuly sculptures interspersed amongst the botanical stuff. It was pretty even thought it was a cloudy day. While in the rose garden we saw a fox sitting around. We got right up to it and it didn't run away. It was kind of cool. We think they put it there to kill rabbits.

We also went to a Sufjan Stevens concert one night. I didn't know too much about him, but Liz really liked him. I hated the opening act (parts of it made my ears want to bleed), but I really enjoyed Sufjan.

One day we visited the St. Louis Arch. I never knew you could go inside of it and ride to the top of it, but you can...and we did. You had to get in this tiny little pod thing that took you to the top where you could then look out tiny windows. We watched a movie on the making of the arch. It was pretty interesting, albeit cheesy at times. Apparently the arch was a fulfillment of Jefferson's dream. Which was never really explained. It's also the gateway to the West. Fyi. It was really cool looking and provides for many interesting pictures.


We explored a nearby cave (Onondaga Cave). It was big. And pretty neat. Apparently back in the day 2 presidential candidates met in the middle of the cave and had a debate. Huh. Interesting location for a debate.

We also went to the St. Louis Zoo, which was a pretty nice zoo. We saw a baby elephant. Kind of. It was far away and hiding behind its mom. We also saw a 2-headed giraffe and a 2-headed zebra. I like the picture of the polar bear blissfully missing the fish being thrown at it. They had a cool penguin area where you share the habitat with the penguins. You walk into a room that's friggin' freezing (like 40 degrees or something). The penguins are in their little areas, but there's not really many walls around them. If you wanted to you could reach out and touch them. Except you're not supposed to and there was a lady therewatching over things. The picture of Liz is outside the area of which I'm referring.



Liz left before I did (I left a few days after her). I went to this place called Grant's Farm with Brighton and her mom. It was weird. It was like a wildlife preserve/zoo/beer tasting. It's owned by the Anheuser-Busch people or something. You drive through this wooded area and see all kinds of four-legged animals like buffalo, deer, antelope, and zebras. Then you go to this other area where there's animal shows (parrots and elephants) and a goat petting area. Also, there was a pen that had these huge rodents in them. I don't remember their name, but it totally reminded me of the ROUSs (Rodents of Unusual Size) from The Princess Bride. Then you go on to another area where you get 2 free glasses of beer to try out. I thought the entire thing very bizarre. Oh, it's Grant's Farm because it's where President Grant used to have his farm. We got to see his old house. Where we were told it's the only house a president both helped build and lived in. Which seemed weird to me.