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Last day in St. Louis
Oct. 25th, 2012 08:31 pmBelated final post about St. Louis trip - back to work this Monday and catching up on all the stuff that'd piled up while we were gone, so haven't had time to write this yet.
Saturday we slept in quite late, for no better reason than because we could. Even once awake, we didn't get right to doing much; spent some time hanging out and reading, showered, and generally lazed about before heading to a costume party. It was a Greek themed party, and I have to say that I rather like the way Bruce looks in a chiton. :) I was a little disappointed at how many people didn't seem to make any attempt to meet the theme, but it was a fun night anyway. Music and a drum circle and some dancing, good food, interesting people. We were out well past the end of the bus lines running though, so when we decided to head back to the hotel, we called for a cab.
I ended up on hold for almost 5 minutes before speaking to a guy (Harvey, he told me 4 or 5 times during our 1 minute conversation) about getting a ride. He kept asking questions and then not letting me answer, or telling me he already had the information - if you already have the information, why are you asking in the first place? Anyway, he said they'd send us a cab "in the next 6-30 minutes."
Uhm... can you give us a little more narrow time frame than that? It's kind of cold standing out here in the dark at 2 AM, and there's no cell reception in the building. "We'll text you when we dispatch someone." Yeah, not really helpful there, Harvey.
So about 2 minutes later, a taxi pulls up. We walk over to it, assuming that this is our ride, despite Harvey's evasiveness. Nope, driver just needed something from the Walgreens right here. But if we're still waiting when he's done, he'd be happy to take us.
We were still waiting when he was done shopping.
So we hopped in (turns out his company charges less than the one we called anyway), and headed off. we were about half way to the hotel (40 minutes after I called) when the first cab company texted to say they were ready to dispatch a cab. So I texted back that we'd already been picked up. The company texted back that nobody actually reads these texts, and if I need assistance I should call again. Then my phone immediately rang before I could dial out, with an automated message from the cab company asking if we still needed a ride....
Anyway...the nice taxi driver who'd picked us up by chance was very chatty, and informed us of the bad areas of town to avoid (a few of which we'd already walked through at night, ha!) and ranted about how terrible the drivers in St. Louis were (while switching lanes without blinkers, and accelerating erratically). We eventually made it safely back to the hotel, where we packed all our stuff up for departure at oh-dear-it's-early Sunday morning, then collapsed in bed for an hour nap before getting back up to stagger off to the shuttle to the airport.
Once again, we made it through security without being more than perfunctorily molested and hauled our sleepy selves to the gate. While waiting, I pointed out to Bruce a guy who apparently spends some time at the gym; his arms were bigger around than my thighs. Upon sardining ourselves into the the plane, I was briefly amused to find myself in the seat next to big-armed guy. I became increasing less amused by this during the flight, as it turns out that shoulders 4 feet wide don't fit in an airplane seat, and I spent a lot of time (the entire flight) with his arm taking up about a quarter of my space. Sleeping did not happen for me on this flight, at all.
58 minute layover in Minneapolis should be ample time to switch to another plane from same airline, right? Well, it was...but would have been a lot more ample if the planes from the same airline were on the same concourse. We made it, and this time actually got to sit next to each other on the plane! Bruce slept the whole flight, I probably got an hour to an hour and a half of something resembling sleep. So, I guess Delta did us okay this time, certainly have had worse airline experiences! We caught a bus from the airport to Bruce's friend Zombie's place, where I fell asleep on the couch while Bruce and Zombie watched football.
Then we drove home, and returned to our normal lives. /vacation
Saturday we slept in quite late, for no better reason than because we could. Even once awake, we didn't get right to doing much; spent some time hanging out and reading, showered, and generally lazed about before heading to a costume party. It was a Greek themed party, and I have to say that I rather like the way Bruce looks in a chiton. :) I was a little disappointed at how many people didn't seem to make any attempt to meet the theme, but it was a fun night anyway. Music and a drum circle and some dancing, good food, interesting people. We were out well past the end of the bus lines running though, so when we decided to head back to the hotel, we called for a cab.
I ended up on hold for almost 5 minutes before speaking to a guy (Harvey, he told me 4 or 5 times during our 1 minute conversation) about getting a ride. He kept asking questions and then not letting me answer, or telling me he already had the information - if you already have the information, why are you asking in the first place? Anyway, he said they'd send us a cab "in the next 6-30 minutes."
Uhm... can you give us a little more narrow time frame than that? It's kind of cold standing out here in the dark at 2 AM, and there's no cell reception in the building. "We'll text you when we dispatch someone." Yeah, not really helpful there, Harvey.
So about 2 minutes later, a taxi pulls up. We walk over to it, assuming that this is our ride, despite Harvey's evasiveness. Nope, driver just needed something from the Walgreens right here. But if we're still waiting when he's done, he'd be happy to take us.
We were still waiting when he was done shopping.
So we hopped in (turns out his company charges less than the one we called anyway), and headed off. we were about half way to the hotel (40 minutes after I called) when the first cab company texted to say they were ready to dispatch a cab. So I texted back that we'd already been picked up. The company texted back that nobody actually reads these texts, and if I need assistance I should call again. Then my phone immediately rang before I could dial out, with an automated message from the cab company asking if we still needed a ride....
Anyway...the nice taxi driver who'd picked us up by chance was very chatty, and informed us of the bad areas of town to avoid (a few of which we'd already walked through at night, ha!) and ranted about how terrible the drivers in St. Louis were (while switching lanes without blinkers, and accelerating erratically). We eventually made it safely back to the hotel, where we packed all our stuff up for departure at oh-dear-it's-early Sunday morning, then collapsed in bed for an hour nap before getting back up to stagger off to the shuttle to the airport.
Once again, we made it through security without being more than perfunctorily molested and hauled our sleepy selves to the gate. While waiting, I pointed out to Bruce a guy who apparently spends some time at the gym; his arms were bigger around than my thighs. Upon sardining ourselves into the the plane, I was briefly amused to find myself in the seat next to big-armed guy. I became increasing less amused by this during the flight, as it turns out that shoulders 4 feet wide don't fit in an airplane seat, and I spent a lot of time (the entire flight) with his arm taking up about a quarter of my space. Sleeping did not happen for me on this flight, at all.
58 minute layover in Minneapolis should be ample time to switch to another plane from same airline, right? Well, it was...but would have been a lot more ample if the planes from the same airline were on the same concourse. We made it, and this time actually got to sit next to each other on the plane! Bruce slept the whole flight, I probably got an hour to an hour and a half of something resembling sleep. So, I guess Delta did us okay this time, certainly have had worse airline experiences! We caught a bus from the airport to Bruce's friend Zombie's place, where I fell asleep on the couch while Bruce and Zombie watched football.
Then we drove home, and returned to our normal lives. /vacation
