Our future in St. Louis: Grilled in Sugar!
St. Louis Road Trip Part Deux avec Danielle! We left Friday afternoon and drove into the city. I thought it was going to be super stormy but it was actually pretty nice! We arrived and Friday night drove around a bit and decided to watch Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. First, we scooped out "Schnucks" the local grocery store, and bought snacks to smuggle into the theatre. Yum. Casey dropped his glass bottle of pop though and it sounded like a bomb. The movie made us three laugh SO HARD! Omg. "MEXICANS!" Oh man. So funny.
Saturday we got up bright and early to start APARTMENT HUNTING! I didn't sleep barely at all because I felt really sick, and then in the morning I still felt really sick, (boo) and then I threw up (yuck) and then I felt GREAT! We hopped in the car and headed over to this weird historic Laundry building that we figured out was the Linen Lofts place.
I accidentally cut off Danielle's head here, but you get the idea. We're starting the day with OPTIMISM!
We met the lady, and she showed us around. Man, they were so unique and cool. I loved the brick and the historic charm of the building, and the kitchen was BEAUTIFUL - brand new, granite, etc. The loft also was very neat and exactly what I was looking for as far as a study space goes. But the bedrooms were very small and had no windows, which is kind of depressing. Plus, in most of the place the floor was just polished concrete. Trendy lofts, but not so home-y. We then saw The Emden, another historic building. Nice space and nice neighborhood and nice hardwood and cool trees, but small, and way too expensive.
See? Cool tree! Danielle and I thought the purple looks like a beautiful disease.
Danielle and Casey laughing as we wait for the lady to show us the Emden.
In between apartment hunting appointments we strolled the Central West End. It was even nicer than I remembered, Mostly because this time it had leaves and I wasn't so nervous. Danielle fell in love with how URBAN it all was ->
Danielle holding St. Louis lovingly.
The ARCH! We drove into the downtown area too, which was very nice. St. Louis doesn't feel like a huge city or anything. Just urban.
I thought the Street lamps in the CWE (Central West End, where all the nice shops and restaurants and stuff are) were charmingly historic!
Here I'm being totally enchanted by one of the pretty historic neighborhood streets lined with tulips! How lovely!
We also went to visit West End Terrace, which at the time, was our favorite hands down. I liked that it was in it's own gated complex like a little gated off city block that was like a little campus inside. Lots of beautiful apartments for a good price, (accent wall!) a beautiful pool, lounge area, and workout facility. and SO well landscaped and manicured! I fell in love a little bit with West End Terrace. Too bad it was so expensive to apply and get on their waiting list!
After some lunch we went to check out the cheeep place Casey was rooting for, Park Lane. We soon discovered WHY it was so cheap. Though the lobby was deceptively nice, inside, it looked like young undergraduate dirty boys would be the ONLY people who could stand living there. The image of that dirty tiny stove and messy messy apartment with exposed plumbing in the bathrooms will be ingrained in my mind with a message that says "NO!!! Don't Live Here!!!" It was bad. Really bad and small.
We had some lunch at the Pasta House Co. and I got the best ravioli in my life. I definitely needed some food cause it was a busy day. After lunch we checked out the Park Station at Debaliviere, farther away above the park, and it was pretty nice. Plain, clean, white apartments. But at the time they had no avaliability, so they'll call us if a three bedroom opens up.
A little discouraged because we'd really only seen one good place that we could get into, we headed back to West Pine (the street like 3 of the complexes were on) to check out Del Coronado, and honestly since the security lady wasn't real friendly when we went earlier, we weren't expecting it to be that great. But, it was the LAST place we wanted to check out.
AND IT WAS AMAZING!!!!
Casey sitting in the lobby. We weren't convinced of the brilliance yet though because we'd been fooled by lobbies before.
Then we met with Emily and she was SO NICE! And she had lived in Littleton CO! yay! She was so bubbly and cool. She took us upstairs and we were greeted with THIS beautiful living room -
It was HUGE and had a lovely view! It obviously wouldn't come furnished, but it was really nice to get an idea of what it would look like with stuff in it. I'm standing in like the middle of the room in this shot. Danielle and I were SOLD as soon as we saw the bedrooms!
The big bedroom (12x16 or 12x18 depending on which floorplan we'd get) which is featured here fitting a huge king sized bed with tons of room to spare.
And the smaller one, 12x10, with a full. So nice! We were so happy to see this ample floorplan (~1200 square feet) for $1040 a month! That was a REALLY good price compared to some we'd looked at.
Then we had a look at the lovely CLEAN nice bathrooms:
SO CUTE!
And explored the kitchen. Now the kitchen was a little small compared to some of the others, but everything still seemed very clean and nice, and with some cute hand towels and stuff, I could really enjoy cooking here:
I really liked the huge pantry that Casey's looking in.
Dining room nook off of the kitchen and living room.
WE WERE SO EXCITED! Our enthusiasm was through the roof to find such a NICE CLEAN spacious new place for such a good price in such a good neighborhood! Not three bedroom, but hey, we didn't see anything with availability that was. At this point, we were ready to just go downstairs and get on the waiting list and move in right away! But, we let her show us the rest of the building, and oh man, the perks just kept rolling!
-NICE laundry rooms on every other floor
-huge freight elevator to move furniture up with
-recycling center on site
-24 hour guarded entry
-3 different parking options, off-street lot, garage, and uncovered top of garage
-A billiards lounge with overstuffed leather furniture and a plasma screen TV (Casey was sold when the idea was posited that he could watch UFC there)
-An indoor bike garage
-shopping carts inside the door near the parking lot, so you can take one out to unload your car, bring it up the elevator, and unload your stuff from the cart!
-Beautiful new fitness center, Casey was excited about the free weights:
-SAUNA!
Oh man... and the list just went on and on. Plus each room has it's own little cooler/heather unit, like in hotels, so we can decide the temp for each room, and there hasn't been central air or heat with cat dander blowing through it then! It was just lovely in every way. And it's the newest building in the Central West End! It was NOT historic, which means no plumbing problems, etc. Actually, Unlimited hot water that we don't have to pay for! They do water, and electric, tenant only does gas. Yay! In all our enthusiasm we went straight downstairs to pay the wait list fee (Emily seemed very confident something would open up for July for us. Because we were so early in the search, we're high on the list and they'll have a lot of turn-over in the summer) and get the first applications in! Oh what fun! oh adulthood! Oh sugar coated future in beautiful CWE so near my humanities building!
We ended the day VERY enthused and Casey was just dumbfounded that the last place (after a day of mostly okay-ish opportunities) turned out to be so perfect. In shock! He couldn't believe there was no catch, no downside, no "con" to the place, only pros! In all, after utilities and parking and all that nonsense, it should only come to like, $430 a person a month we've figured. So we should be doing great!
We went back to the Water Tower Inn and crashed a little while, Casey and I took a nap, and then we all three went out for a late dinner - a treat from my parents. We decided to check out St. Louis's Italian district "The Hill." We drove around it a lot trying to find a yummy looking italian place that wasn't packed like Favazza's. (Oh we had a good time with that restaurant name!) We decided to check out this place that looked as if it might have been a bar, which I was pouty about (I was also starved because it was like 7:45) and I was so wrong! We were constantly wrong and surprised all day! It was actually like a really NICE little hole-in-the-wall place! Lovely, and we had a nice meal. and the house dressing was like green and crazy-unique! Mmm also, Cabernet Sauvignon...
After dinner Casey and Danielle prepped for their auditions. I was impressed listening to them run their sides, and then decided my presence was probably distracting, and took my book In Search of the Dark Ages (yes I read medieval history books on my vacations...) out into the lobby. Then sleep. I pouted at Casey for saying it would be best if I stayed in the hotel while he went to his St. Louis Repertory Theatre audition. I understand though; he needed to focus.
So I slept in that morning, and then spazzed with them about how great they did when they got back! Danielle was SO confident and as she was leaving heard them say "How can we use her?" or something like that. YAY! Casey was less confident, but he's never overly-confident after auditions. I'm sure he did great. I really hope they find a role for him somewhere, because it would be such a great confidence boost, and he may get really discouraged if he's not cast. I don't think he should be though, because this is the biggest most prestigious theatre company in St. Louis and it was his first professional audition in St. Louis, and I think he should just be so proud that went well. May take a while to break into the scene, but I'd be SO proud of him and so happy for him if he got into something, no matter how small, right away. I am sure they'll take Danielle; she's so talented and seemed so confident coming out of her audition. YAY for my future actor roommates.
Then we went out for the most EXPENSIVE BRUNCH IN THE WORLD! We should have realized that we'd wandered past our pay grade when we were offered complimentary mimosas upon sitting down. Needless to say, I had one. DELICIOUS. My new favorite drink. I mean, I love orange juice, and I love champagne... The buffet spread was AMAZING. Holy CRAP I've never eaten breakfast like that. They had foods I hadn't seen since I was in France, the most AMAZINGLY fancy desserts (I loved the tray of tiny beautiful pastries!) but the best part was the grilled pineapple. Ooooh the pineapple grilled in Sugar(!) was so good! oh man! I ate a lot of that pineapple. We laughed and relaxed and celebrated how idyllic life seemed like it would be in St. Louis for us!
We drove back listening to the radio all the way. Mostly classic rock, which is always appropriate. We heard one goo goo dolls song, and I was like, "oh man, I wanna hear that city of angels song now!" and we changed the station and a few songs later it was on! Crazy. We had a good time laughing about stuff in the car. One thing that will be fun next year is that Danielle just loves to laugh, and I think that will make life very cheery in our perfect apartment next year! I'm excited!!!
Casey told me later he's so excited to be going to St. Louis and moving in with me. I'm excited too. I think we're going to get even closer, and THAT is an exciting wonderful prospect! :-)
