puszysty

sertascheep came here on Sunday after mom picked her up, whereupon we preceded to do....nothing. Though she was introduced to my dad's goulash, which I could eat pretty much every day if I wanted to. Sara, I hope you aren't too terribly scarred by my Nsync posters. ;)

Our original plan was to leave at 10am, but after a call from my uncle stating that St. Louis was supposed to get hit with freezing rain and snow storms on Monday (which never did hit STL, by the way), we left much earlier at 8:30. After stocking up on munchies of course, half of which we didn't eat just because we kept somehow accumulating more food. Rather uneventful drive, weather wise. It rained through Indiana, and again in the middle of Illinois. The rain in Illinois was coming down and staying on the roads as rain, but it wasn't until we stopped to see why my wipers weren't working so well that we realized the rain was actually freezing. But since it was only freezing when the wind hit it, only the front hood, bottom wipers, and antenna were iced over. My car looked a bit like a popsicle when we pulled into my aunt's parent's house. The rain stopped before we hit Missouri. Rather fittingly, my ipod chose to play Nelly as we crossed over the Mississippi.
Arrived in Lake St Louis (deceitfully not so close to St. Louis itself, as it's one of the outermost suburbs) at 2-ish, chatted with Russ and Ida for a while, and played some Settlers. Watched the weather to see what things would be like the next day before crashing at 10 CST. I don't know what it is about driving that makes you so tired, it's not like you're really doing anything.

Because of the weather predictions and how STL traffic supposedly was, we left like an hour and half early to get to the pre-fair pep talk. I'd thought it was a breakfast, but either I read it wrong or they lied. Good thing I had a banana beforehand. Well, the only thing on the ground when we left was a light dusting (we saw snow plows already out and were laughing, but in hindsight looks like they were just getting prepared!) and "traffic" was really not much to speak of, so it only took us about 45 to get there. Luckily, womenforhire had a networking activity arranged for us, which took up the time. Everyone was rather shocked that we drove all the way from Michigan; it was rather amusing when 6 ladies all turn around at the same time and say "Michigan??". The talk itself was helpful, giving advice on attitude-wise how to approach a job search and your career.

The fair itself was also helpful. I talked to a number of companies, including the Federal Reserve, Kraft, the IRS, Transportation Security Administration (are we noticing a pattern here? I'm really starting to think that the federal government is the right fit for me), and some people from Iowa (thanks but no, I don't think I'd enjoy Des Moines). I don't know how I got roped into talking to people from insurance sales; someone from New York Life even said they would call, but they haven't, of which I'm kind of glad. I know I'm not cut out for sales. Everyone except the Iowa people were hiring directly in STL, and I was repeatedly asked where in the metro area I was from. The fact that there were so few women there (thank you snow) allowed me to actually talk to the representatives and give me ideas of what to look into and even a few names to contact. Also got my resume critiqued for free, which was definitely a plus. I had set mine up as Career Services had suggested, and the critiquer said the way it was organized failed to bring out my best assets, so I will be rearranging it tomorrow. Career Services really has been striking out in my book lately. :P

By the time we left at 11:15-ish, the area had amassed a good 4 inches of snow. Sara managed to get us downtown thanks to her mad yooper driving skills. Y'all know how I feel about snow driving. :P According to my receipts, we ate lunch at a place called Joey B's, the only place open near the arch. Seriously half of town was closed because of snow. Their menu stated that their pizza had been featured on Food Network, so it sounded like a good bet. I ordered bacon pizza, thinking it would just be bacon bits (as is common), but there were 8 actual strips of bacon on my personal sized pizza! Thanks to that and the super creamy cheese, I only ate about half. Had the leftovers for dinner that night and still couldn't finish the dang thing.

I have to give a quick thanks to solariana and musiclover03 for their suggestions on things to see in St. Louis. Thanks ladies, we managed to hit up some of them!
After lunch we went to the well-known Gateway Arch. When we got there, we were the only people there. Mind you, this is STL's major tourist attraction and it was just us. I think the snow worked quite to our advantage! So naturally, there was no waiting to get to the top, and the guards up there offered to answer any question we had and send up a space capsule whenever we felt like going down. There was a group of teenagers when we got back down, so we weren't alone anymore. The view from the top is pretty cool, I'm sure it's much cooler when you can see past the snowfall. I hadn't realized how tall it was, it's even taller than Washington Monument!
Poked around the Museum of Western Expansion (where I robbed a stagecoach ;) ) for a little while before heading out. After testing the packability of the snow by throwing snowballs at each other, we decided to build a snowman right by the arch. Sadly, the snow didn't seem to want to roll, but we did manage to build a small malformed snowman in the park area. But hey, who else can say they built a snowman by the Gateway Arch? I hope the groundskeepers were amused.

Headed to Union Station, where again, we were pretty much the only people there. Most of this was also closed, including the museum. But one thing that was open was black light mini-golf, which was pretty sweet. :D
Since it was only about 5-ish and didn't feel like leaving town just yet, we tried calling the botanical garden (figured the museums all close at 5 anyway). Also closed- early due to snow. So, having struck out on anyplace that might be open, we just drove back. All the better, since we got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on 370, which is supposed to be the shortcut highway. Took us twice the time to get back that it should've. And I'm not kidding when I say that STL drivers are nice! Anytime we signaled for a lane change in said traffic, someone actually let us over! In Chicago, the only way to get over is to start squeezing your car into the next lane, b/c no one there would ever give you room to move.

Next day, we went to the loop before leaving for Chicago. It took us a while to figure out that the St. Louis hall of fame was on the sidewalk and not a building itself. Those were fun to read, though a few were buried under patches of snow that hadn't melted. Some of them I had no idea were even from STL, like John Goodman. Went into a fun little manga/comic book store and ate lunch at this amazing cheap and delicious Japanese restaurant. Originally we had wanted to go to this Ethiopian place, but turns out it was dinner only. Fitz's has a bottling plant/restaurant in the area as well; I had never heard of Fitz's until Russ talked about it, it's a St. Louis made root beer company. We went to the restaurant just to try the root beer. Endless frosty mugs for $2! Of course, 2 is quite enough, despite the fact that our waiter brought us thirds. It's good root beer though.

Left at roughly one-ish, making a few pit stops thanks to way too much to drink. Proceeded to be thoroughly confused as to why all the Panera's were called St. Louis Bread Company. Stopped at the exact same gas station in Normal as we did on the way down. Got to la_di_dum's house after 7 sometime. We were chilling, playing Boggle, waiting for Karen to get home when I felt my throat getting scratchy and then starting sneezing. I honestly had no idea I had a cat allergy (I assume that's what it was), I very rarely am around them. Anywho, after Karen got back, we played Settlers, of course. It's been too long, I think I must've been on a slight withdrawl.

Chicago job fair didn't go nearly as well as the STL one did. For one, we had to wait in line for over and hour just to get in the door. Did manage to talk to a few people (DEA who appeared to be looking for translators...but really just in Spanish, asked the DHS if you any choice in location, and talked to Walgreens about opportunities in corporate), and got a couple leads but not nearly as many. Fighting the crowds was just a pain. Since it was at Navy Pier (all the way in the back ugh. Between that and the endless standing in line I have a lovely blister on my small toe) and so is Bubba Gump Shrimp, we ate their for lunch. can't go wrong with shrimp.

and that is my week in a very big nutshell.