St Louis to San Francisco

The Old Courthouse in St Louis

Another moving day, but my flight wasn't until the early afternoon, so I went for a quick walk around the area and visited the Old Courthouse.  I didn't have much time there, but there were lots of historical displays inside, mostly about slavery and court battles over it.

I'd been granted a late checkout of 2pm, so I left at 1.59pm in the end and took the light rail to the airport.  Unfortunately, the man sitting in the row behind me started playing loud rap "music" which was very annoying, and in the end I got off and waiting 15 minutes for the following train.

I'd already checked what was available at the airport, so I was able to have dinner before departing, which was a few minutes late as the crew had got stuck in traffic!

I was in row 2 for this flight.  Next to me was a man who seemed quite clumsy - he struggled for ages to get the tray table back into the armrest, nearly had his glass of red wine over when he reached to the floore to pick up his mobile phone that he'd dropped, did actually knock the glass off later on although it was empty thankfully.  However, he was watching Dr No on his laptop, with subtitles - so I watched it too.  I also couldn't get the table back into the slot in the armrest.  I remember struggling with these in the past, and if you do get the angle of everything just right, you have to be careful because it'll trap your fingers in the mechanism.  Fortunately, whilst I went to the loo, he managed to put it away for me!

The chicken salad was OK; the pudding wasn't to my taste - I thought it was going to be a cake of some type, but it was actually just a mixture of different flavoured goo.

I managed to find my hotel very easily - I came out of the Powell St station and it was right there in front of me, so that's handy.  Check-in was OK and pretty normal, but this hotel is different to anywhere else I've stayed.

Firstly, the lifts.  It is becoming more common to need to tap your key card before it'll let you select a level, bu this place is the next level on from that.  There are 8 lifts, lettered A-H, and a pad on the wall to call one - you tap your card and enter the floor number you want and then it tells you which lift to go in and the letter lights up above the appropriate lift.  There are no floor buttons in the lift at all - just open doors/close doors/call for help.  

This caught out another man who followed me into my lift and then was confused because of the lack of buttons!

 My room  is not as large as the one in St Louis, but still pretty big.  The only downside is that it backs onto the lifts, so there is occasional grinding noises coming from behind the wall.  The windows are also not as soundproof as I would have expected, as I can still hear some of the city noise even on the 21st floor.  Although it is the middle of the city, I'm sure that when I was in the Hilton next door in previous times, the soundproofing was better.

However, the view is OK, looking West along Ellis St.  Being around the corner from Powell St means that I don't get noise from the cable cars, particularly the driver ringing his bell at every intersection!

I was going to go out and walk around a bit after settling in, but found it was actually raining, so I came back straight away.

Secondly, the curtains are automated.  There are buttons on the wall that allow me to select the shade and/or the blackout blind and I can make them go up and down, stop half way, anything I like.

Thirdly, there is a $35/night "resort fee", but you can put restaurant costs towards this both here and at the Hilton across the road if you prefer that.  However, the buffet breakfast costs $30 before tax, so it comes out at more than the $35 in the first place.  Or at least, I think that's how it works - I had difficulty understanding the woman who I met at breakfast this morning.

I think $43 for breakfast is way too much.  That's what it is after tax and gratuity,  It's a fairly large buffet and they'll make you an omelette if you want, which I don't, but they don't do a la carte in this section - so I think they'd charge me that even for just a small bowl of oatmeal.   As far as I could understand, they also have a grab'n'go area next to the buffet - maybe I'll look at that tomorrow, because I'm not paying that amount for breakfast every day.