Meet Me in St Louis (A Couch Surfer's Experience)

I survived another thrilling six hour adventure on the Greyhound to make it to St. Louis, Missouri (this time, there was a baby that didn’t stop crying from the moment it boarded the bus. You know the type of crying I’m talking about, the one that sounds like a death metal fanatic at a Metallica concert).

St. Louis is a cute type of city, much like a teenager that missed that part of puberty when they were supposed to get a growth spurt. This is in fact the story of St. Louis. Once upon a time, it was a booming metropolis, also referred to as the Gateway to the West. In honour of this namesake, St Louis erected the first largest freestanding structure called The Arch – a large semi-circle of steel which is situated between the city and the banks of the Mississippi. Apart from its historical reference to the city, The Arch looks like just that, a giant arch.

Anyway, St Louis began to lose popularity to larger cities around it – Chicago, Philadelphia, New York – and soon the population dwindled considerably. This is partly due to the political and governmental organisation of the city wherein St Louis and St Louis County exist as two completely different entities, meaning that each smaller suburb is responsible for itself and are able to streamline the caste system with their own governments to control taxes.

All this I learnt from my hosts, Hannah and Tony, in my first ever couch surfing experience.

Definition of Couch Surfing: Where a poor backpacker takes advantage of the kindness of strangers and sleeps on the couch or spare bedroom of people he/she has never met before.

Couch Surfing is not such an uncommon way to travel anymore and while at first I had my reservations, friends who had surfed and survived with little to no horror stories, recommended it as a worthwhile experience. So I joined the online community Couch Surfing.com and found myself a cute couple, Hannah and Tony, who lived with their three cats on the outskirts of St Louis.

While most couch surfers do just that – surf/sleep on a couch – I was lucky enough to get my own room at Hannah and Tony’s. They were very welcoming and went to great lengths to make me feel as safe and at home as possible. While both studied (you guessed it, politics), I was left up to my own devices during the day.
As discussed, St Louis is a geographically divided city, with each of the suburbs almost like a different city unto itself. After visiting The Arch and taking a million shameless photos, I made my way to the City Museum, the main reason I had come to St Louis in the first place. The City Museum is a playground for children and adults alike, made completely out of recycled materials (tin cans, train carriages, yellow school buses etc). But I got there to find that, between Labour weekend and March, it’s shut Monday and Tuesday. And what two days was I in St Louis for? Yah – Monday and Tuesday.

So I put my disappointed butt back on the train and headed out to Maplewood and The Loop for a spot of retail therapy. The Loop is known as one of the 10 Most Famous Shopping Strips in America and is a retail playground of vintage thrift stores, boutiques and independent handy-crafts. And you know how I can’t deny a good handy-craft...

After breakfast with Hannah this morning where we talked more politics, I spent a few enjoyable hours lazing around the house watching cable and playing with the cats. Then, for what felt like the thirtieth time, I squeezed my belongings and fresh purchases into a bag that I swear has the magical powers of Mary Poppins – I continue to procure and it continues to somehow accommodate.

And I boarded the Amtrak train and was left wondering what I’d been missing out all of these weeks, schlepping it out on the dirty bus when such heaven existed on the railway tracks.

Ciao for now. xo