Chris Does St. Louis.

Back again. I think I'm done with travelling for the time being. Having spent two weeks in England, I was home for one day before going to a conference in St. Louis. I arrived early so I did the tourist thing up the St. Louis Arch whilst I was there - that's one of my 'arty' cellphone photos below.
The conference was the usual guff. The hotel was nice and the area it was in was even nicer - the Central West End. It's left over from the 1901 World's Fair and it's very cosmopolitan - lots of walking streets, small independent shops and a raft of excellent restaurants.
The word 'excellent' however can't be applied to St. Louis' airport. It functions nearly as badly as Heathrow and Gatwick. Starting with the rental car return signs that direct you out of the airport and back on to the motorway. Then the security personnel, who as far as I could gather at 6am this morning, were more interested in where they were going for Thanksgiving this year than the business of actually performing security. Topped off by the lacklustre terminal layout with very few windows, nowhere to get anything to eat or drink and the most interesting smell I've encountered inside a building since I was at University.

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