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muckefuck.
Friday, we escaped my kin by means of an airport shuttle. We didn't actually want to go to the airport, but we figured $27/each to get there from 37 miles out of town was the best deal we were going to see without subjecting ourselves to more familial discord. From there, it was supposedly only a 15 minute trip back into town to our hotel. We called about the hotel shuttle and they told us to catch a cab, for which they would reimburse us.
After one week in a mountain resort town that's as white in summer as it is in winter, it was refreshing to see a dark face behind the wheel. His features looked Ethiopic to me so, as I was handing him the fare, I said:
"Excuse me, I hope this isn't a rude question, but are from the Horn of Africa?" [I figured Eritreans have a Canadianesque bug up their butts about being confused with Ethiopians. Probably a bigger one, since it's been like a whole century or something since we invaded Canada.]
"Yes."
"Eritrea or Ethiopia?"
"Actually, I'm Somali. There are many tribes and clans, but I come from part of Ethiopia where they are all Somali."
"Oh, Ogaden."
You would've thought I'd said, "Here, take the contents of my wallet and the keys to my car." His eyes lit up like headlamps and it took almost a minute to disengage myself, as he shook my hand and asked excitedly if I'd even been to East Africa. He kept wanting to know how I knew about Ogaden and the only explanation I could offer was "I read maps."
We dropped off our bags with a porter, another immigrant but one whose origin I found harder to place. Hispanic? Middle Eastern? Then we went out in search of lunch. Along the way, we'd passed a very promising upscale Chinese eatery called xiao li. (In English, that is. The Chinese name was Li4yuan2; the first character is the name of some plant and the second means "garden".) I hadn't had Asian food in a week and was going into withdrawal.
On the way down, we saw the bronze cupolas of a very un-Mormon looking house of worship. La Bête remarked that it seemed very Byzantine right about the time that I recalled seeing a banner up for a Hellenic Festival next month. It turned out to be Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, but before we got to it, we reached the restaurant only to find it closed. A painter working on spiffying it up assured us that it had very good food. We asked him where else we could go. "What about the Thai place?" I asked, pointing to a nearby sign announcing lemongrass.
"Huh-huh! Fine, if you wanna pay $30 a plate! There's a place across the street called Natalie's. Good burgers, stuff like that. It's a social club, but they shouldn't give you any trouble. If they do, just say the guy working across the street sent you." Utah has some quaint liquor restrictions, of the kind that should be familiar to the really old fogeys and Southerners among y'all. In many places, you can't get a drink in "public establishments", meaning that you have to join a "social club" if you want alcohol with your meal. Here was a guy on the street offering two complete strangers the benefits of his membership. He went even further: "I could call ahead and tell 'em I've got two guests coming. Want me to do that?"
I was impressed by his generosity and depressed by the thought of more frontier food. So I said, "Thanks very much for the offer, but I think we'll see what else we can find." If he was displeased, he was gracious about it. Half-a-block later, we stepped into Cup of Joe to get coffee for la Belle Bête. To our surprise, it was a lovely, comfy, pseudo-industrial space. The food actually looked good, which one can't say of a lot of coffee shops (notably *bucks), so we grabbed sandwiches and seats. The house blend of ice tea was phenomenal. It was a beautiful deep red, refreshing without being bitter, and palatable without needing any sugar. The barrista could tell us the ingredients--chamomile, hibiscus, rose hips, lemon, spearmint--but was sworn to secrecy about the proportions.
One of the two guys who had come in after us and were looking through a stack of board games pulled out BibleQuest : Old Testament Edition and showed it to the other. They ended up sitting near us and discussing the historicity of scripture while we noshed and leafed through the free weeklies in search of Kulcha. The Old White One had it in his head to visit the SLC Art Center, so we set off to check its hours.
This took us right back past our friendly painter, who politely asked whether we'd found a place to eat. He didn't seem to share my enthusiasm for Cup of Joe. We'd barely gone a block east before I saw a sign saying Vosen's German Bakery. To my surprise, this enterprise was squeezed into an attractive turn-of-the-century townhouse. I had to check it out.
They had everything one could want from a good German bakery: Berliner, Käsestangen, Brötchen, solid-looking breads, and odd-looking sweet pretzels. I was stunned. You must understand, I live in Chicago, one of the Germanest cities in the USA, and I can't find a bakery this authentic. (I love Delicatessen Meyer, but their baked goods paled next to these.) It was like finding soul food in Denmark. A darling, china-fragile, blond-haired lady--Mormon war refugee? who knows?--came to take our order, which I gave to her in German. When I awkwardly specified our Berliner choices as "Ein Aprikosen, ein Himbeer" she sang in reply, "Einmal gelb, einmal rot!"
We left the place on a cloud of poppy-seed roll scent that I couldn't stop sniffing. After swinging past the Art Center, we came back to the hotel for check-in and a nap. When the swarthy porter went to get our bags, I caught sight of his name tag: Milovan. So when he handed me mine, I trotted out my single most useful Serbo-Croatian polite expression: "Hvala." He paused for a moment before repeating "hvala"--as if to convince himself he'd actually heard it--and replying "Molim."
Our napping was not exactly crowned with success. At first, I was too twitchy, so I got up and wrote in my journal. About the time I attempted to lie down again, la Chenue got up and set himself in the armchair to read. After a moment or two, I suggested he just head on to the SLAC; if there was anything worth seeing there, he could take me by when he returned. He readily agreed and I was able to catch a few winks.
[Had I considered how long-winded this would be, I would've inserted one of those clever hotlinks that rollick frequently employs to shunt off wordier entries. Oh, well; sucks to be one of my Friends.]
I rested until the Stupid Woman showed up. The ringing phone had awakened me, but I had managed to ignore it--how could it possibly be for me when almost no one knew where I was?--and was almost slumbering. Then, a knock on the door. I shambled over, nude and spectacleless, expecting a return of the hotel employee who had asked if we needed more bottled water. Instead, peering through the keyhole, I saw some short-haired blonde lady.
"What is it?"
"Is Nan Fofanna there?"
"Who?"
"Is this Nan Fofanna's room?"
"This is C____ C____." [I was still working on the assumption that this was an employee and the room was in my boyfriend's name.]
"Do you know where Nan Fofanna's room is?"
This last line just floored me. What kind of ditz just wanders around a hotel floor knocking on doors trying to find someone? Any normal human would've apologised for disturbing me and pissed off. I think I yelled "No!" before stumbling back onto the matress. Sleep was, of course, impossible at this point, so I just waited for my honey to return.
He did, and filled me in on the exhibition, which didn't sound compelling, so we went to the hotel jacuzzi instead. Hours later, he suggested staying in and ordering room service, but the thought of more Amurrican Food held no appeal. So we dressed and headed out.
Xiao li more than lived up to our expectations. I was a little concerned when we were greeted by a girl in jeans and a cheap Chinese blouse in a foyer where a couple was collecting their take-out, but we had faith in the tasteful blue-and-white bilingual banners with the Mandarin spelling. This was vindicated two steps into the next room, where we confronted a large saltwater tank with bright blue tangs. The decor was understated, modernised Chinese, with pale golden walls, a high industrial black ceiling, large windows all around, and more-or-less traditional art on the walls. It wasn't top drawer, but we found much to admire, particularly among the calligraphy. I made my usual thwarted attempts to read the grass script ("Okay, I think that's 'big'.") and we settled within view of a huge, kitschy landscape and a slim, hunky waiter.
Alas, he was not to be ours; we were served by a sparkling, charming young woman with a Japanese name. (As CC observed, "It's not her fault she's not a man.") I engaged her in a little banter about Chinese vegetables to establish that we were Not Looking for Chop Suey and we ordered from a menu that had two large personal seals imprinted on the first page. One contained li4, the same character as in the name of the place, twice, but I was unable to make sense of it.
The first dish left us speechless. It was called "Szechwan dumplings" or hong2you2chao1shou3. The name literally translates as "red oil seize hand". The "red oil" was a chili dipping sauce with a delightful spicy-sour taste; "seize hand" is an idiom meaning "folded hands", which is what the dumplings resembled. (I later looked it up and found that this is a Sichuanese dialect term for "wonton".) They were just swimming in the sauce and we couldn't get enough of them. Then the waitress brought out a dish of cha siu pork, which we hadn't even ordered. It was like she'd received advance mental communication of my proclivities. Unlike an awful lot of what passes under this name, this wasn't too sugary; the meat had a warm, spiced taste, like from star anise or five-spice powder. We began to quiz her about the ingredients and she apologised for her ignorance, being only a server and not a chef. She later informed us that the owner would answer our questions when he had a moment.
The shrimp and scallops in a potato nest were the first disappointment. The menu advertised a "garlicky sauce", but this stuff wasn't spicy enough to upset a baby's tummy. We began to ladle the remaining hong2you2 over it, which didn't really blend with the existing flavours, but at least gave it some kick, making a mental note not to get caught doing this by the chef. However, the Shanghai noodles were more than up to par; we ate every last one.
When the owner came by, we found that the secret to the sauce was a blend of three chilis that we probably couldn't get out of him short of torture. He was very pleased with our interest and talked freely about himself. His parents were from Manchuria, but he was born a wai4sheng3ren2 in Taiwan, where he met his wife. They had been here a nearly a decade. Her given name was Li4li4--the first of the two personal seals in the menu. The meaning of the character turned out to be "jasmine", so the name could be parsed as either "jasmine garden" or "Li's garden". It's typical for Taiwanese to refer to people by the second part of their given name preceeded by xiao3--"little"--thus the source for the "English" name.
She wasn't here, though; she ran a humbler restaurant called Chinese Lily in Sandy City, which we knew only as the terminal station of the UTA tramway. Apparently, it has all the charm of a newish Chicago suburb, except that the diners are even less adventurous. Mr. Lei--the second seal read Lei2 Li4, so "xiao li" could be his nickname as well--seemed pleasantly resigned to the nature of his clientele. He took their mild tastes as a challenge, which is why his Szechwan sauce was interesting as opposed to simply hot. Still, we couldn't help but imagine what he could've done in a more cosmopolitan city with his inventiveness and flair and fantasised about taking him back to Chicago with us.
As we moved on to admiring the art, he told us the tales of various pieces: How the one above the bar, bearing the title of his restaurant, was commisioned from his wife's uncle, a retired general. How he had paid an astounding $1,300 in Suzhou for the landscape overlooking our table. The subject was one we weren't familiar with, an ancient Chinese doctor who would not accept any payment for his services, but asked his patients to plant cherry trees. (Doing research yesterday, we found a matching account only with apricot trees, not cherry; xing4lin2 or "apricot grove" is to this day a term of praise for a talented doctor. He also either misidentified the doctor or the same tale is told of Hua Tuo--the first surgeon reported to use anesthetic and a character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms--as well as of Dong Feng, the subject of the versions we found. They both lived in the Han Dynasty, but only one is God of Medicine!)
In short, the conversation was as intriguing and satisfying as the cuisine. Only after we'd eaten ourselves full did we notice the pert, fleet, and amusing man refilling our water glasses. The second time he came by, he looked right at me and said "You're very interesting!" Not knowing what else to say, I replied "Gracias" and he zipped away before I could ask him what he meant.
We had previously floated the idea of desserting at Cup of Joe, but now we didn't feel up to it. Snow Bear headed outside for his "ciggy" and I took a closer look at piece on the north wall, done in the style of an enlarged Chinese seal. These are even harder to read than grass script, which is, after all, just a cursive form of the standard script. Seal script is archaic, continuing forms over 3,000 years old. I was struggling to make out the simplest of the characters when the water carrier, Alonso, popped up again. "You can read that?" he asked, astonished. "Not really," I protested. "The owner once told me what it means, but I don't remember. I don't know Chinese. Solo habla español y parlo italiano."
So we struck up a conversation in Spanish! He owes his Italian to his father, who emigrated to Mexico, but many of his friends in Utah are Basque. I told him about Basque Brand Chorizo, which is available in local supermarkets, asked for recommendations for local Mexican food, and generally bantered. I couldn't tell if he was flirting or just a very outgoing, agreable person. In any case, Mr. Lei came by again and deciphered the lower seal for me: "Besotted Husband". (fu1 "husband" I had misread as tian1 "heaven".)
We had originally planned to visit some of the local gay watering holes--supposedly, they were just a little west of where we were--but changed our minds. We were a little tired, it had been a day full of pleasant adventures, and they were probably no less tedious here than anywhere else. Instead, we charted a course through the Union Pacific Station (now the Gateway Center, an urban mall like St. Louis' Union Station) back to the hotel and slee
Friday, we escaped my kin by means of an airport shuttle. We didn't actually want to go to the airport, but we figured $27/each to get there from 37 miles out of town was the best deal we were going to see without subjecting ourselves to more familial discord. From there, it was supposedly only a 15 minute trip back into town to our hotel. We called about the hotel shuttle and they told us to catch a cab, for which they would reimburse us.
After one week in a mountain resort town that's as white in summer as it is in winter, it was refreshing to see a dark face behind the wheel. His features looked Ethiopic to me so, as I was handing him the fare, I said:
"Excuse me, I hope this isn't a rude question, but are from the Horn of Africa?" [I figured Eritreans have a Canadianesque bug up their butts about being confused with Ethiopians. Probably a bigger one, since it's been like a whole century or something since we invaded Canada.]
"Yes."
"Eritrea or Ethiopia?"
"Actually, I'm Somali. There are many tribes and clans, but I come from part of Ethiopia where they are all Somali."
"Oh, Ogaden."
You would've thought I'd said, "Here, take the contents of my wallet and the keys to my car." His eyes lit up like headlamps and it took almost a minute to disengage myself, as he shook my hand and asked excitedly if I'd even been to East Africa. He kept wanting to know how I knew about Ogaden and the only explanation I could offer was "I read maps."
We dropped off our bags with a porter, another immigrant but one whose origin I found harder to place. Hispanic? Middle Eastern? Then we went out in search of lunch. Along the way, we'd passed a very promising upscale Chinese eatery called xiao li. (In English, that is. The Chinese name was Li4yuan2; the first character is the name of some plant and the second means "garden".) I hadn't had Asian food in a week and was going into withdrawal.
On the way down, we saw the bronze cupolas of a very un-Mormon looking house of worship. La Bête remarked that it seemed very Byzantine right about the time that I recalled seeing a banner up for a Hellenic Festival next month. It turned out to be Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, but before we got to it, we reached the restaurant only to find it closed. A painter working on spiffying it up assured us that it had very good food. We asked him where else we could go. "What about the Thai place?" I asked, pointing to a nearby sign announcing lemongrass.
"Huh-huh! Fine, if you wanna pay $30 a plate! There's a place across the street called Natalie's. Good burgers, stuff like that. It's a social club, but they shouldn't give you any trouble. If they do, just say the guy working across the street sent you." Utah has some quaint liquor restrictions, of the kind that should be familiar to the really old fogeys and Southerners among y'all. In many places, you can't get a drink in "public establishments", meaning that you have to join a "social club" if you want alcohol with your meal. Here was a guy on the street offering two complete strangers the benefits of his membership. He went even further: "I could call ahead and tell 'em I've got two guests coming. Want me to do that?"
I was impressed by his generosity and depressed by the thought of more frontier food. So I said, "Thanks very much for the offer, but I think we'll see what else we can find." If he was displeased, he was gracious about it. Half-a-block later, we stepped into Cup of Joe to get coffee for la Belle Bête. To our surprise, it was a lovely, comfy, pseudo-industrial space. The food actually looked good, which one can't say of a lot of coffee shops (notably *bucks), so we grabbed sandwiches and seats. The house blend of ice tea was phenomenal. It was a beautiful deep red, refreshing without being bitter, and palatable without needing any sugar. The barrista could tell us the ingredients--chamomile, hibiscus, rose hips, lemon, spearmint--but was sworn to secrecy about the proportions.
One of the two guys who had come in after us and were looking through a stack of board games pulled out BibleQuest : Old Testament Edition and showed it to the other. They ended up sitting near us and discussing the historicity of scripture while we noshed and leafed through the free weeklies in search of Kulcha. The Old White One had it in his head to visit the SLC Art Center, so we set off to check its hours.
This took us right back past our friendly painter, who politely asked whether we'd found a place to eat. He didn't seem to share my enthusiasm for Cup of Joe. We'd barely gone a block east before I saw a sign saying Vosen's German Bakery. To my surprise, this enterprise was squeezed into an attractive turn-of-the-century townhouse. I had to check it out.
They had everything one could want from a good German bakery: Berliner, Käsestangen, Brötchen, solid-looking breads, and odd-looking sweet pretzels. I was stunned. You must understand, I live in Chicago, one of the Germanest cities in the USA, and I can't find a bakery this authentic. (I love Delicatessen Meyer, but their baked goods paled next to these.) It was like finding soul food in Denmark. A darling, china-fragile, blond-haired lady--Mormon war refugee? who knows?--came to take our order, which I gave to her in German. When I awkwardly specified our Berliner choices as "Ein Aprikosen, ein Himbeer" she sang in reply, "Einmal gelb, einmal rot!"
We left the place on a cloud of poppy-seed roll scent that I couldn't stop sniffing. After swinging past the Art Center, we came back to the hotel for check-in and a nap. When the swarthy porter went to get our bags, I caught sight of his name tag: Milovan. So when he handed me mine, I trotted out my single most useful Serbo-Croatian polite expression: "Hvala." He paused for a moment before repeating "hvala"--as if to convince himself he'd actually heard it--and replying "Molim."
Our napping was not exactly crowned with success. At first, I was too twitchy, so I got up and wrote in my journal. About the time I attempted to lie down again, la Chenue got up and set himself in the armchair to read. After a moment or two, I suggested he just head on to the SLAC; if there was anything worth seeing there, he could take me by when he returned. He readily agreed and I was able to catch a few winks.
INTERLUDE
[Had I considered how long-winded this would be, I would've inserted one of those clever hotlinks that rollick frequently employs to shunt off wordier entries. Oh, well; sucks to be one of my Friends.]
I rested until the Stupid Woman showed up. The ringing phone had awakened me, but I had managed to ignore it--how could it possibly be for me when almost no one knew where I was?--and was almost slumbering. Then, a knock on the door. I shambled over, nude and spectacleless, expecting a return of the hotel employee who had asked if we needed more bottled water. Instead, peering through the keyhole, I saw some short-haired blonde lady.
"What is it?"
"Is Nan Fofanna there?"
"Who?"
"Is this Nan Fofanna's room?"
"This is C____ C____." [I was still working on the assumption that this was an employee and the room was in my boyfriend's name.]
"Do you know where Nan Fofanna's room is?"
This last line just floored me. What kind of ditz just wanders around a hotel floor knocking on doors trying to find someone? Any normal human would've apologised for disturbing me and pissed off. I think I yelled "No!" before stumbling back onto the matress. Sleep was, of course, impossible at this point, so I just waited for my honey to return.
He did, and filled me in on the exhibition, which didn't sound compelling, so we went to the hotel jacuzzi instead. Hours later, he suggested staying in and ordering room service, but the thought of more Amurrican Food held no appeal. So we dressed and headed out.
Dinner
Xiao li more than lived up to our expectations. I was a little concerned when we were greeted by a girl in jeans and a cheap Chinese blouse in a foyer where a couple was collecting their take-out, but we had faith in the tasteful blue-and-white bilingual banners with the Mandarin spelling. This was vindicated two steps into the next room, where we confronted a large saltwater tank with bright blue tangs. The decor was understated, modernised Chinese, with pale golden walls, a high industrial black ceiling, large windows all around, and more-or-less traditional art on the walls. It wasn't top drawer, but we found much to admire, particularly among the calligraphy. I made my usual thwarted attempts to read the grass script ("Okay, I think that's 'big'.") and we settled within view of a huge, kitschy landscape and a slim, hunky waiter.
Alas, he was not to be ours; we were served by a sparkling, charming young woman with a Japanese name. (As CC observed, "It's not her fault she's not a man.") I engaged her in a little banter about Chinese vegetables to establish that we were Not Looking for Chop Suey and we ordered from a menu that had two large personal seals imprinted on the first page. One contained li4, the same character as in the name of the place, twice, but I was unable to make sense of it.
The first dish left us speechless. It was called "Szechwan dumplings" or hong2you2chao1shou3. The name literally translates as "red oil seize hand". The "red oil" was a chili dipping sauce with a delightful spicy-sour taste; "seize hand" is an idiom meaning "folded hands", which is what the dumplings resembled. (I later looked it up and found that this is a Sichuanese dialect term for "wonton".) They were just swimming in the sauce and we couldn't get enough of them. Then the waitress brought out a dish of cha siu pork, which we hadn't even ordered. It was like she'd received advance mental communication of my proclivities. Unlike an awful lot of what passes under this name, this wasn't too sugary; the meat had a warm, spiced taste, like from star anise or five-spice powder. We began to quiz her about the ingredients and she apologised for her ignorance, being only a server and not a chef. She later informed us that the owner would answer our questions when he had a moment.
The shrimp and scallops in a potato nest were the first disappointment. The menu advertised a "garlicky sauce", but this stuff wasn't spicy enough to upset a baby's tummy. We began to ladle the remaining hong2you2 over it, which didn't really blend with the existing flavours, but at least gave it some kick, making a mental note not to get caught doing this by the chef. However, the Shanghai noodles were more than up to par; we ate every last one.
When the owner came by, we found that the secret to the sauce was a blend of three chilis that we probably couldn't get out of him short of torture. He was very pleased with our interest and talked freely about himself. His parents were from Manchuria, but he was born a wai4sheng3ren2 in Taiwan, where he met his wife. They had been here a nearly a decade. Her given name was Li4li4--the first of the two personal seals in the menu. The meaning of the character turned out to be "jasmine", so the name could be parsed as either "jasmine garden" or "Li's garden". It's typical for Taiwanese to refer to people by the second part of their given name preceeded by xiao3--"little"--thus the source for the "English" name.
She wasn't here, though; she ran a humbler restaurant called Chinese Lily in Sandy City, which we knew only as the terminal station of the UTA tramway. Apparently, it has all the charm of a newish Chicago suburb, except that the diners are even less adventurous. Mr. Lei--the second seal read Lei2 Li4, so "xiao li" could be his nickname as well--seemed pleasantly resigned to the nature of his clientele. He took their mild tastes as a challenge, which is why his Szechwan sauce was interesting as opposed to simply hot. Still, we couldn't help but imagine what he could've done in a more cosmopolitan city with his inventiveness and flair and fantasised about taking him back to Chicago with us.
As we moved on to admiring the art, he told us the tales of various pieces: How the one above the bar, bearing the title of his restaurant, was commisioned from his wife's uncle, a retired general. How he had paid an astounding $1,300 in Suzhou for the landscape overlooking our table. The subject was one we weren't familiar with, an ancient Chinese doctor who would not accept any payment for his services, but asked his patients to plant cherry trees. (Doing research yesterday, we found a matching account only with apricot trees, not cherry; xing4lin2 or "apricot grove" is to this day a term of praise for a talented doctor. He also either misidentified the doctor or the same tale is told of Hua Tuo--the first surgeon reported to use anesthetic and a character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms--as well as of Dong Feng, the subject of the versions we found. They both lived in the Han Dynasty, but only one is God of Medicine!)
In short, the conversation was as intriguing and satisfying as the cuisine. Only after we'd eaten ourselves full did we notice the pert, fleet, and amusing man refilling our water glasses. The second time he came by, he looked right at me and said "You're very interesting!" Not knowing what else to say, I replied "Gracias" and he zipped away before I could ask him what he meant.
We had previously floated the idea of desserting at Cup of Joe, but now we didn't feel up to it. Snow Bear headed outside for his "ciggy" and I took a closer look at piece on the north wall, done in the style of an enlarged Chinese seal. These are even harder to read than grass script, which is, after all, just a cursive form of the standard script. Seal script is archaic, continuing forms over 3,000 years old. I was struggling to make out the simplest of the characters when the water carrier, Alonso, popped up again. "You can read that?" he asked, astonished. "Not really," I protested. "The owner once told me what it means, but I don't remember. I don't know Chinese. Solo habla español y parlo italiano."
So we struck up a conversation in Spanish! He owes his Italian to his father, who emigrated to Mexico, but many of his friends in Utah are Basque. I told him about Basque Brand Chorizo, which is available in local supermarkets, asked for recommendations for local Mexican food, and generally bantered. I couldn't tell if he was flirting or just a very outgoing, agreable person. In any case, Mr. Lei came by again and deciphered the lower seal for me: "Besotted Husband". (fu1 "husband" I had misread as tian1 "heaven".)
We had originally planned to visit some of the local gay watering holes--supposedly, they were just a little west of where we were--but changed our minds. We were a little tired, it had been a day full of pleasant adventures, and they were probably no less tedious here than anywhere else. Instead, we charted a course through the Union Pacific Station (now the Gateway Center, an urban mall like St. Louis' Union Station) back to the hotel and slee