A Weekend in the Lou

This already feels like ages ago, but after Minnesota I returned to the office for a few days before flying off to another conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference was held a bit out of the city and, despite my best efforts, no one wanted to set foot near downtown to show me around due to their fear of the crowds that had been drawn for March Madness.

I did, however, get to see the home and office of one of the coordinators I work most closely with, and met her adorable St. Bernard puppy who diligently tried to eat my pants and jacket.

The picture above is of their office building as it was years ago when it was a hotel in the early 1900s.

I also got to try a few regional specialties, including fried raviolies, and some Mavrakos chocolate which claims to be "a Saint Louis tradidtion since 1913."

Missouri was also overrun with geese! They were everywhere! None of my pictures really turned out, but if you look closely at the grey blobs in the picture above and use your imagination a bit you might get an idea. It was fascinating, although, according to the locals they are quite a nusance because they get in the roads and disrupt traffic, and also because they poo everywhere. I guess I can understand the animosity.

I had a free hour between the time the conference was over and when I needed to be a the airport so I decided to take the metro and see as much of St. Louis as possible in that time. I was told that I'd never make it downtown and back in an hour so I stopped somewhere in between at Forest Park, which is the ginormous park with multiple museums throughout. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in front of the Missouri History Museum as I exited the metro stop. Really, I can't think of anywhere that would have been better to spend an hour (40 minutes at this point...) of free time in Missouri. I had time to check out an environmental exhibit where different organizations had made pieces of art with food cans and boxes, and an exhibit on the Worlds fair (birth place of the waffle cone), before heading back to the airport to catch my flight back to LaLa land.