The Trolley Man Sent Me
- Natasha
- Jul 8, 2015
- 3 min read
Day numero uno in the birthplace of the Gateway Arch. We wanted to get out of the house on time to drop Kizzy off at her doggy day care, and to catch the 10 o’clock Fun Tour of Downtown St. Louis. We left only fifteen minutes after we’d originally planned but we still managed to miss the trolley of our destiny by like, two minutes. Good thing it goes around four times a day, everyday. We had about an hour to kill so we head for the Science Centre because it’s indoors and quite free for admission. However, it seemed half the population of the world had the same idea as us so the building was basically a claustrophobes nightmare, so it was my absolute favourite thing ever. There was some cool stuff on the evolution of scientific study thanks to technology and the decoding of genomes, but we didn’t get to see much else before our hour was up. As it was, we were kind of rushing to get back to the trolley tour pickup place that happened to be the front of the Lumière Casino. Then we had the hassle of everyone having to pee, save me, so I was left standing in line wondering what the hell I was gonna do when I got to the front. Luckily, Mum finished before that point and saved me with greatness. Like Superman. The tour was great, plus we got a discount because we kept our tour tickets from KC. The tour guide totally had the really deep narrator voice, so it was like a ride at Disneyland. He showed us the Arc, obviously, which I learned it 630ft high and
630ft wide. St. Louis also has a Union Station, but unlike the one previously spoken of, this one is not a historical landmark, no. Instead it’s a Hard Rock Cafe. Classy. We went through Forest Park, which is apparently bigger than Central Park in NYC. It’s got a zoo (absolutely free), a dog friendly restaurant, an art museum, a science museum and buildings left over from the World’s Fair in 1904. They also hosted the 1904 Summer Games, so you can imagine how busy it was that year. He recommended some places to eat and told us to greet the people working at said places with “The trolley man sent me!” One barbecue place, Pappy’s, is world famous and they have a big wooden sign inside their door saying they’ve been approved by the trolley man. We drove down Washington St., where there is a cafe that serves 73 flavours of Gooey Butter Cake and the Dubliner, an Irish pub that serves Guinness Cake, like the beer, that’s served spilling out of a glass so it looks like spilled Guinness. We headed up past City Museum, which is more of a giant playground than an actual museum. Plus it has a Ferris Wheel on the roof. It’s built in and old shoe factory in the garment district of town. The trolley man also showed us their city hall, a sandstone building black with pollution on some places and uneven on others. The story is that it was so gross the government decided they were going to clean it, but it was so dirty they didn’t know what it was made out of. They tried to pressure wash it and the workers, even after they had noticed chunks falling off, didn’t stop because they were being paid for the job, so what did they care? Fun fact, the trolley man told his daughter it was the Bat Cave, the result being she got called batgirl all the way up until grade two. Whoops. After our tour, we headed down to check out City Museum, but it was fantastically busy so we went to check out the cafe with the Butter Cake and plan the rest of our stop in St. Louis. We decided to check out the Federal Reserve, where they put money into circulation. Surprisingly enough, we went the wrong way, got lost and showed up at the Reserve an hour after they had closed. We got to see the City Hall and a sculpture park though. Basically we ended up exploring St. Louis without meaning to explore St. Louis. The benefits of getting lost. Buenas noches, peace out m8s.
