Road Trip

The man and I got out of town this past weekend and headed to St Louis, Missouri for a little change of atmosphere. We just sort of swapped one city for another city, you might say. And you would be correct. However, no city really truly compares to Chicago, in my opinion, so the swap was a bit uneven. But that is what I think happens with any city you visit after living in Chicago for long enough--there are just so many amazing aspects of the Second City, it is hard for any other city to compete. Obviously from that last statement it is clear that Chicago won my heart long ago and I don't think I will ever stop loving it, even long after I am-gulp-gone someday (because let's be honest, it is bound to happen sometime. I'll never afford the property taxes here and we all know it).

But back to St Louis--the other town in this story.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I did not have a bad time. Quite the opposite in fact. We had many options for fun and adventure, as well as a plethora of food and drink choices. We took in a Cardinals game. We climbed up and down the amazing City Museum (which I highly recommend because it was honestly the craziest thing I have ever seen. EVER). We bar hopped and had some of the greatest Spanish tapas dishes ever. We ate some of the best sushi I have ever had at the Drunken Fish. We took pictures of ourselves with the famous Arch and then rode up to the top for a kind of lame really lovely view of the entire city. It was a great time and I felt that the city had much to offer in terms of interesting neighborhoods and surprisingly cool venues.

It was just that the people were so weird. And the customer service in general was so bad. Everywhere we went, I swear. Now I hate making generalizations as much as the next person, but the city really revealed this particular element of itself as our trip went along. It became sort of a running joke with us, which was helpful because that kept it from becoming super annoying and kept us sane through some of the really weird situations.

For instance:

They ran out of hot dogs at the ball game. We had to walk to 3 different places till we finally found a stand that still had hot dogs. And we took the last two. This was only in the 7th inning, folks. Who the hell does not have hot dogs at a freaking baseball game? Seriously? Are we in America? Did you not expect a shit-ton of people to attend this event and request the most typical food item that could be found there? Wow.

We could not get the hotel we stayed at to do a damn thing that hotels typically do for guests. Nothing. The customer service was not even bad. It was nonexistent. I have never experienced anything like that before. And coming from working in hospitality oh so many moons ago, I know how a normal hotel is run and what they can do. Like when the remote control was missing in our room and I called down to ask for an extra one and the front desk said they just did not have any. Complete bullshit. There is always an extra remote in housekeeping, or in another unused room somewhere (even when they are full, there is always an extra room somewhere. Always). Or when we asked for housekeeping to come clean after they seemed to ignore us for a few days, and we came back to find only our bed made and our old towels taken away. No replacement towels. No fresh cups. No new soaps or anything.

No one at the hotel knew how much the bus fare was for a bus that stopped right outside the hotel. No one had a schedule for said bus route. Any beer on the menu at the "bar" (more like a sterile-looking counter in the lobby) was not available. Why did we even get a menu for said beer? God (and the rude bartender) only knows. When we asked if we could order off the menu at breakfast time in the "cafe," we were informed that nothing on that menu was available either, and that the old cheesecake in the glass case was all they had. These are just a few of the highlights. There were plenty of other little annoyances that were pretty wacko while we were there.

The shocking thing to me was just the lack of alternatives offered, you know? Like okay, if you don't have that beer, or that one, what do you have? Or even better--okay, if the tram to the Arch broke after we waited in line for an hour for a ticket, what do you suggest we do? Wait it out? Try another fun activity nearby? It is okay that things don't always run smoothly or you are out of something we wanted. Just apologize and offer some ideas of how we can get something else. Like normal freaking customer service people. It was the apathy and sense of indifference that was so shocking to me. I have never seen so much of it in one vacation in one location.

Eventually, we became accustomed to having to go to the internet to get the answers we needed from the hotel. Eventually, we figured out the bus system ourselves. Eventually, we went to the cafe down the street to eat breakfast that was not cheesecake. Eventually, we found a hot dog. We managed to navigate the city ourselves using a little improvisation, a little ingenuity, and a whole lot of "I think this route will get us to an area we will enjoy." And ultimately, we did just fine.

So St. Louis, it was real, and it was fun. And it was even real fun. But next time? Give me my damn remote control so I can watch bad TV on my vacation without having to get up from the bed. (I also happen to think this is a metaphor that sort of encompasses the feeling of the entire trip. Think about it.)