Touring St. Louis

So Sean took a shower and we headed out.  He gave me a tour of the city, showed me the arch, and we tried to go see the graffiti wall.  From what I hear, it is the longest stretch of continuous graffiti in the U.S. but sadly, there was no way we were going to see it.  The graffiti wall is also a flood wall.  Remember the apocalyptic storm?  It completely submerged the wall.  So, with that idea out of the question, we just started driving around.  It turns out that Sean knows a lot about the history of St. Louis.  He showed me a bunch of buildings left over from the 1904 World Fair that St. Louis hosted.  He also showed me the poor neighborhoods.

The bad neighborhoods are insane.  Apparently, the city got grants to build up the poorest neighborhoods of St. Louis, so the apartment building themselves are gorgeous, red brick buildings and they look like something you would pay a fortune for but it is all Section 8.  There are shooting constantly, and you simply do not go to those neighborhoods.  The other thing that I learned is that while the red brick buildings are beautiful, the occupants cannot afford air conditioning so the buildings turn into brick ovens.  Overwhelming numbers of people suffer and die from heat exhaustion because these beautiful red brick buildings are nothing more than giant ovens for the poor.

The next thing he showed me was the Cathedral Basilica that boasts the largest collection of mosaics in the world.  Here is some photos, though they don't even come close to doing it justice.

 

 Next he took me to the gallery of the owner of the City Museum.  He has a regular gallery space, and then a huge yard where he has live music and small parties.

After that tour we grabbed some chinese food with the best hot and sour soup i have ever tasted in my life.  We went back to his place, had a beer or two and played some old 90's arcade games on his Wii.  I am happy to say I finally beat two of my old favorites: Sunset Rider, and The Simpsons.