Tuesday, October 27, 2009

MISSOURI - ST. LOUIS











Our first stop today was to be the City Museum in St. Louis - which is really for kids, with lots of fun, interactive sciency (not really a word, I know) stuff to do. As it was a Tuesday (and not a Sunday or Monday) we felt pretty confident that it would be open.
We should have realised how wrong we were when we found a carpark very easily and one that was very close to the entrance. Not to mention the fact that there was no-one at the gate taking money to park the car.
No. It actually took us getting out of the car, rugging up in coats and walking to the front door and reading "Closed Monday and Tuesday in Winter" to realise we weren't going to get in. Disappointed we were. Not to mention feeling slightly ripped off as, while summer is definitely over, winter it is not.
Undeterred but kind of a tiny bit sad (Nic more than a tiny bit) we made our way to the next thing on the list. The St. Louis Arch. It's a big, big arch (hence the name) that you can go up into and view the town and the river. Under the ground there is a museum, shop and a few other things and the access up to the top of the arch. You get in these little capsule type things and you are taken up to the top in a way similar to if you were on a ferris wheel. Only it's all enclosed. It was a cloudy day so the view wasn't as good as we had hoped but it was still a great experience. Something a bit different from the other really tall structures that you can go up in.
An interesting thing we had read about in the LPG (Lonely Planet Guide - nothing to do with gas) is a restaurant called "Charley Gitto" which is apparently famous for it's ravioli which is crumbed and deep fried. So of course we had to try it. It was in a great little place. Dark panelled with photos of celebrities on the walls that had visited.
Our last stop was also food. We were pretty stuffed from our lunch but we had read that St. Louis is famous for frozen custard. Not any old kind - Ted Drewes frozen custard, So naturally we drove a bit out of our way to try that. You can pick a flavour (I had cookie dough, what else?) and they can either put that on top or mix it through. They call it a block. Because if you hold the container upside down it doesn't come out because it is fairly solid (until it starts to melt of course). Not runny like the way we know custard. It kind of doesn't take like custard either. Or at least not what I thought frozen custard would taste like. It was however, very nice and worth the drive.
So all in all it was a great day, despite the road works, rain and change in time zones that meant we lost about two hours.

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