Blogging St. Louis

Wow...what to say. Like I said to Jeff, I flew to the Fly-Over-States...what was I thinking?

To bring my reader (singular of course) up to date, I had to come to St. Louis to meet a supplier. This part went very well. Meeting the supplier. They're a family-owned (for 92 years) business, they're reputable, they're good at what they do, they're really the type of furniture manufacturer that I need. Everything but the 8 hours that I spent with them has been a living hell.

Let's start in Madrid. I was flying Bordeaux-Madrid-Newark-St. Louis. In Madrid, they told me that my connection from Newark to St. Louis was cancelled, but it shouldn't be a problem, 'cause there was a flight at 7pm that I should be able to catch. Ok, get on plane, 8 hours across the ocean. Land in Newark...late, of course. Waiting for my bag to pop out, I asked about the potential connections to St. Louis...Everything on Wednesday was canceled to St. Louis...Good luck, enjoy the night in Concourse C...He also told me that the first morning flight was canceled and the second one was fully booked. GREAT! Get out of customs...nothing to declare...Go to the "Passenger re-routing line (for displaced Continental customers)"...yep, that's the one, there with 40,000 people in it. So I stood in line and tried to call Continental reservations to see if they could fix my problem...15 minutes was the average wait time on the phone...After 8 minutes I lost the call...Call back, press # 20 times until they tell me that don't understand what I want, they'll transfer me to a customer service agent immediately...and they did. No 15 minutes here. Ok, I'm booked on the 9:15am out of Newark. It's now 4pm. Call people, try to get to Rockland...Finally I get to Rockland at 7pm...5:30am, shower, Newark. We board, we leave the gate at 9:30am...and we wait and wait and wait for 1.5 hours. Then the captain says we've waited so long that we need to get more gas, we don't have enough to get to STL...finally we leave about 1h45m late. Arrival St. Louis and of course there's no gate open...we wait some more!

Finally I leave the damn airports! Meet with my supplier for 1 hour, I arrived so late that I didn't have time for me. Downtown STL to look around. Of course the hotel had canceled my reservation, even thought I spoke with 4 different people the day before to tell them I wouldn't be there. Anyway, they fix this. Let's check out St. Louis! My hotel's only a block from the Arch, so I walk down there. It turns out that 0°F is cold. My hands were numb before I made it to the Arch.

Next stop, a pharmacy to buy hair gel, shaving cream and body wash 'cause they "stole" this stuff when I was in Newark I didn't have time to check my bags so everything over 3oz (100ml) was seized 'cause I guess hair gel is the weapon-of-choice of terrorists these days. It turns out that "pharmacies" are unknown to heart-landers...Ok nix that. Next stop a bar...hmmm, ok it turns out that when there are no sports events no one opens their doors 'cause St. Louians don't venture out if there isn't some sort of sporting event. Ok, no bar...Restaurant? Hooters or TGIFridays...ok screw this, I'm going to the hotel. At least they have a bar there, and a restaurant. Slowly slowly defrost over a few pints...eat (I'd missed lunch too because of the stupid travel plans)...then sleep. I love jetlag...I'm exhaused, but at 3am I wake up cause my body decides it's done sleeping.

Anyway, I met again with the supplier this morning and that went great. We talked about business, he's ready to work with me...business was done. I get done early, bring the car back and go to the airport...The first thing I see all Continental flights to Newark "Delayed." I check in, she tells me I can take the 4:23pm flight...great! It'll leave at 6:30pm...what?! That's later than my scheduled flight...ok sir, if you want that one, it's due to leave at 9pm. UGH! I actually missed the 1pm flight by minutes (at 3pm).

Anyway, I'm waiting for this flight to board. Hopefully we'll get to Newark before tomorrow morning.

Conclusions: Don't travel, ever. If you have to, don't fly...Does the QE2 make a port of call in St. Louis? Don't go to St. Louis...it's one big Arch, 40 hotels and 400 banks. Oh, and the military is huge. I saw a Calvin sticker pissing on a sign that said "France and the UN" and some guy named "God" is really big here. This is not the Northeast people.