Birthday Trip - St. Louis and Nashville

Something I just realized I never posted my birthday trip, which was in July!! So James had planned a birthday get away for us. We went to Nashville, TN and then St. Louis, MO. Nashville was ok. We met up with Katie and David at the mall and walked around the mall. It was a really nice mall and they had a lot of Hello Kitty stuff so I was O-M-G'ing a lot. So if you are in TN and you are looking to shop I recommend this mall. It was awesome.

 But before we met up with Katie and David we ate at a place called Arnold's. It's known for it country cooking. It was packed out and good, real good.

James' is the top half, Mine is the bottom half.

 That night we went Downtown and walked around. It wasn't really our scene. A lot of blues, jazz and country bars. There was one shop that I was absolutely in love with but I cannot remember it's name or if it has a website. It guess you can consider it a "hippy" store. It had organic stuff and hand carved items and jewelry. But we ate at a place called Demo's.

It was ok, it wasn't the best. We had another restaurant picked out but we didn't know you had to have reservations and dress REALLY nice. So it was a last minute pick.
The next morning we hit the road for St. Louis but before leaving TN we tried this really awesome organic sandwich shop. I wish we had something similar to this in our area. We probably have something like it in Atlanta but I haven't heard or seen anything similar to it.

Tofu, Egg, Everything Bagel Sandwich.

 When we arrived in MO we got settled in our hotel which had an amazing view.

The hotel was so nice and it was packed with Cardinals fans and there was also a concert thing going on that weekend under the arch but we didn't go to it. For lunch we went to Schlafly Tap Room.

Beer Sampler. Beer and Cheddar Soup.

Falafel.

Lamb Burger.

Inside the Lamb Burger.

 James and I started off with the beer sampler. And we are not dark beer fans but their dark beer was really good. It taste like oatmeal. I was surprised. Then I tried their beer and cheddar soup which was phenomenal! I should have just got the bigger size bowl for my whole lunch. For lunch I had a falafel, I never tried one and I've heard of it. It was good, it was different. And James had this amazing lamb burger. It was probably the best burger I've eaten. It was juice and you could taste all the flavors. It just melted in your mouth.
We had the smart idea of walking back to our hotel after lunch. Which by the way was WAY too far. But we ended up taking a lot of pictures of the different buildings and pictures at the City Garden.

Which I recommend everybody to see, the artwork there is a site to see. But the buildings in St. Louis are so detailed and old I love it. We had mentioned to each other that if we would have known St. Louis was going to be awesome we would have went straight there. We could also see us living there. But anyways!! We tried going to the arch but all the tickets were sold out. We tried to take a hotel's shuttle bus but they weren't taking anymore people or something so we took a regular taxi and I'm surprise this taxi driver didn't kill us and is a taxi driver at all. We told him we wanted to go and he asked us where it was at...Really we don't live here and we don't work here. And he had like this crazy German accent I was laughing the whole time. I wish James would have recorded it. But we had to change our dinner place again. We didn't know you had to dress really nice, like dress pants and ties. But we ate dinner at a sushi place called Wasabi that night and it was horrible. The service was rushed and they were rude. I believe we walked in at 930ish maybe and they closed at 10 and they were just rushing us and I would not recommend anyone to go there. Maybe go at lunch, maybe there aren't rude at lunch time. Their saki was like drinking chemicals.

James had gotten me a glove for my birthday.

 And we planned the next day to go to the Arch bright and early. So we got up as soon as they opened and rode up into the arch.

Door to get into capsule.

How high up we were.

View from the top. Our hotel is the cylinder one.

View from the street.

We grabbed lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse for some really good BBQ. They had a line wrapped in and out of the building.

Brisket Sandwich, potato salad, and fried corn.

Rack of ribs, beans and sweet potato fries.

 Everybody that goes to St. Louis HAS to go there. The meat just feel off the bone and melted in your mouth. There potato salad was really good. And our last stop which I don't know how I was able to eat it but we got frozen custard at Ted Drewes.

The lady didn't hand it to me upside down like they say on TV. But it was good and creamy. I didn't know what flavor to get so I just got Oreo, my go to when I have no idea. You can never go wrong with Oreo.
It was a good birthday. I wasn't a normal birthday but I liked it, it was different and new. We wanted to see more places and I wouldn't ask to do it on any other day than my birthday. I had a really good time. I appreciate my husband for the time he took to do all he did for it. he is the best.

But that sums up my birthday trip that I never mentioned. Hopefully many more to come.