Erin Explores Travel

Tourist Day in St. Louis

My foreign exchange student’s best friend from back home in Norway came to visit us the week between Christmas and New Years, and it was my mission to show her as much of Missouri as possible in her short time here. We decided to hit up many of the tourist sites in St. Louis, and we saw a lot in one day!

Mississippi River Overlook

We started at the Mississippi River Overlook, as the internet said it had the best views of The Gateway Arch. I was worried the views wouldn’t be too great as it was super foggy the entire drive up there. Luckily it mostly dissipated by the time we arrived. It was very chilly and still cloudy, but we got a quick look. I made a comment about at least it will be heated inside there and Stine goes, “We can go up in it?!” And I was like yes, that’s what we bought the tickets for. I guess I didn’t make it very clear what exactly we were doing.

Top of the Gateway Arch

It seemed like the girls thought it was pretty cool getting to go up to the top, especially in the tiny tram car. And I don’t remember how long ago I was up there last, but I was definitely still in school I think. I remembered the windows being bigger haha We laughed alot trying to take a selfie and get the background to show up through the tiny window!

Mural Mile

After The Arch, we drove past The Mural Mile, which was this huge area of street art that was actually very cool. You’ll have to Google it if you haven’t seen/heard of it because I didn’t get any photos as I was driving and also trying not to get lost. Had to make a 20 point turn to get back out of there, because my little car was not going to make it over the railroad tracks!

Science Museum

After that we ended up at The Science Museum for an hour or so before we got hungry for dinner. The girls tried an Icee, and Synne said that ours are much better than the ones they have in Norway.

Dinner at Fitz’s

Then for dinner I wanted to take them to The Cheesecake Factory, but the wait was going to be an hour and they were pretty hungry. We each grabbed a slice of Cheesecake/Cake To Go and ended up at Fitz’s because the girls were craving burgers. (They were not too impressed they couldn’t get Coke Zero there. I was like no they only have their own sodas. They ended up trying the Bomb Pop one, and while they said the flavor was good, it was too sweet, as is a lot of the stuff they’ve tried here.)

Last Stop: Crumbl Cookie

Then we had to hit up Crumbl Cookie one more time before Stine leaves (that was the one place she was most excited to try in the US), and the girls peer pressured me into getting a box of minis to try. (As if we don’t have enough sweets still at home from Christmas.) I honestly don’t know that I’ve had their cookies before… I had heard they weren’t that impressive from several people. (Hate to say the Vanilla Bean one I tried when we got home was actually pretty good.) Finished up with my Dunkin’ stop for a coffee since we don’t have it here locally.

All in all, I think we had a good day!