I left for the airport at 4:30am yesterday….ouch, that was early. We ended up getting delayed on takeoff 45 minutes, which led to a tight connection and running through the Minneapolis airport for me! I swear, that was the biggest terminal! I was disappointed I had zero time though, because that airport actually has a lot of great, healthy food options, and I had to just grab the first random salad I saw!

Finally, around 2:30, I landed in St. Louis and was surprised by the 90 degrees and humidity.

As I drove into the city, it really hit me how much I like and miss this city. I had such an amazing time here. I honestly never understood the true appeal of summer and summertime activities until I lived in Tennessee, and then here. It just feels so laid back. I miss that a lot, and I’m determined to bring more of that back home with me!

My first stop was the zoo to visit some of my animals.

First stop was my bear, Kali!

I was happy to discover I could still ID the chimps.

The handsomest gorilla <3

Other friends:

^SWAs (Somali Wild Asses)

Around closing time, the sky started to darken, so I headed back to my hotel to check in. I was SO excited to be greeted by this complimentary gift:

St. Louis classics: Gooey Butter Cake and Fitz’s root beer! (You may recall my visit to Fitz’s in this post.)

I did break into some of the gooey butter cake right before bed (my most common gluten reaction is to get SUPER sleepy, so I figured why not), and it was AMAZING.

Right after I checked in, my friend came over and we got ready for a night out. On the way, we picked up Jimmy John’s and I got a turkey “unwhich.”

Then, we were off to ballpark village!

It was sort of surreal to have my SF baseball team playing, all the way across the country!

My friend won a cocktail party, which basically meant cheap drinks for us at one of the places there. When in St. Louis, you go for $3 Budweisers. For the record, Budweiser is better here (and you can get Select, which I don’t see at home).

It was pretty incredible to be able to step out on the balcony and be able to clearly watch the game. Storms rolled in about halfway through, so we returned inside and waited out the rain delay there. Finally it was back on!

It was so much fun to be back with these people, and I love that a large part of St. Louis’s night life is centered around baseball!

We left during the top of the 9th to avoid crowds, but I watched the exciting (we came back from behind to win!) ending from my hotel.

One of the things I love about St. Louis is how easy it is to just go downtown for the night. It is such a production to go into SF to do anything, especially on a weekend night. Parking is a nightmare in SF, so I rarely make it up there.

Saturday morning, I slept in (does it count as sleeping in with the time change?) and then dropped into my Crossfit here! It was so, so nice to see everyone and get a good sweat in. We did lots of shoulder strength pre-WOD, and then the WOD was 15 minutes of push press, rowing, lunges, and pull ups.

They even gave me a pair of sunglasses to take home! <3

After Crossfit, I headed to Comet, as per the start of this post, and had a delicious decaf cappuccino.

I think this coffee might actually be better than Blue Bottle….

I’m excited to go to Blueprint tomorrow!

I have to say….after being home for 6 months, coming back I like it here even more. I could even see myself coming back here, who knows? I really do want a change from California at some point, and once I’m done with school, living in California will be really expensive. So we’ll see!

I’m off for more adventures in a bit! Catch ya later!