The backup plan: St. Louis!

Marshall wearing his seatbelt in the back

We did end up driving west; just not as far west as we had planned! We left Pittsburgh after Labor Day weekend and drove to Chicago. We ended up leaving a lot of stuff behind in Pittsburgh that we had been hoping would fit in the car. The car was a LOT smaller than we had anticipated…

We spent four days in Chicago catching up with friends and family. Marshall met his cousin Marley the cockapoo for the first time and went to the beach on Lake Michigan. Jon and I ate deep dish, explored Evanston, and hung out with high school and college friends. After spending time  in the city with friends, Chicago is looking more attractive than ever, and I’ve actually found a lot of jobs to apply to there in the past two weeks!

Then we drove to St. Louis, where we’ve decided to stay until one of us gets an actual job offer. We decided that driving all the way out to California and spending all of our money on a sublet was dumb; instead, we’re staying with my parents and saving our money for a real move. We’re continuing to apply to jobs all over the place, including Toronto!

We don’t know how long we’ll be here, but we’re happy to be in St. Louis. Every day we’re applying to jobs, networking, and keeping each other motivated. I realized that this is the first time in my life that I have been unemployed. Even as a student, I’ve worked since I was 15. I’m really eager to get back to work, especially for some of the awesome international education jobs I’ve found.

On the agenda for the next week: Blues preseason game in St. Louis, City Museum downtown, Tower Grove farmer’s market, visiting Natalie in Lawrence KS, Penguins preseason game in Kansas City, and continuing our trek to every single independent coffee shop in the St. Louis area!

Leaving St. Louis

I never feel like I have enough time in St. Louis.  Even though I can count the number of friends I have here on one hand, I never manage to see them all.  I try to take my dogs to the park every day.  I still haven’t visited the new building at my high school.  I always come thinking I’m going to read a bunch of books that my parents recently bought, but instead I get through about 20 pages of one.  For all these reasons, plus the fact that it’s free rent, I really want to live here this summer.  Plus, most of the things I love doing in St. Louis are things that I want to show off to my friends from out of town, and by living here, people have an excuse to come visit.

My last night here I went to a hockey game with my dad.  The Blues may be at the bottom of the Western division, but they sure are fun to watch.  I’ve only been to one Blues game in my life, but I was like 10 and still scared of the sound of giant men crashing into the boards.  We beat up the Columbus Blue Jackets and got coupons for free Dairy Queen blizzards because the Blues scored so much.  Fans sitting around us gave us high fives — it was so adorably St. Louis.

Before the game started I got to go right up to the glass to take pictures.

What I really wanted to post on here before I left was pictures of my “treasures.”  When I was little I had a treasure box, which was full of papers and pictures that were important to me.  The thing I want to find most is a book of maps I created.  I used to draw and name my own countries, states and cities, often named after my friends or words that I just thought sounded cool.  I made them into books that were really colorful.  I guess I’ve alwasy been obsessed with geography!  When I’m back next summer, I will not rest until I find my book of maps.  Instead of that, I found boxes and boxes of notes from friends, literally from age 6 to 22.  I have notes that talk about what Kelly told Julie about Molly and Erin and if Andrew really liked Katie or if he just told Jimmy that to make Ryan mad for what Jennifer and Kristen said last weekend.  I have notes from my days at my all-girls high school about how much we wanted to meet some cowboys.  I have love notes and hate notes and happy notes and sad notes from college.  I’m not sure what to do with all my notes, but I’m so glad I have them.  It really is the best connection I have to what I was like growing up.