Family Travel

St. Louis Union Station
The next day we went to check out St. Louis Union Station. Here it is.

Inside they have one of those neat whispering things were you whisper and people can hear you on the other side of the room.

Very pretty interior.

The station also has a portal to the Magical World. Here are J and I exhibiting our Muggleness. We couldn't get through.

Outside the station there were a lot of fish.

The Arch
After lunch, we drove around in search of the arch. We were a little lost for a while, but then I found it.

See, here it is!

J and I were so excited, we did a dance.

Here are a series of photographs.

Once inside the arch, we had to wait our turn to go up, so like good tourists, we went to the gift shop. J and I tried on cool hats.

Finally it was our turn! They put us in a small pod, and up we went!

Here are some of the views from the top.

The Trip Home
On the way home, we got hungry for dinner, so we stopped at Arby's. This was probably the most exciting part of the trip for me, because I love Arby's, and look at the special they were having. I was too, too excited.

And thus ends the trip. So, finally, I am ready for some second semester stuff. I'm only 3 months behind, so, it could be worse. But I need to hurry because I'll be home in six weeks! Hard to believe this year has gone so fast!! Well, anyway, I should go, because I still need to churn out 1000 more words for a paper due tomorrow. So, adios!

This entry is mainly for the benefit of my friends and whatever Aussie family members may occasionally tune in, as my immediate family was with me on this exciting road trip to St. Louis! So get excited everyone! You're about to get a behind-the-scenes insider's peak of just what a Rarick Family Road Trip entails!

The Drive

Our Car's Odometer. This picture was actually taken about a week prior to the road trip, but I'm including it because it's pretty nifty.

Here we are in the car.

The Mid-Trip Stop: Paducah, Kentucky.
Along the way, we stopped to have lunch in and walk around Paducah.

They had some pretty pictures.

Here's the main street.

The Tennessee River.

A fish organ Jonathan found. It was exciting.

Then there was a big train, so we went to look at that.

J and I being emo-myspace (he taught me that term) outside the place we had lunch.

J ordered a hot dog and received this. We were confused. I also like the hole in the wall. A high class place, for sure.

The Drive Continued: St. Louis
Here it is!

The Hotel
After checking into our hotel, one of the first things we had to do was check out the exercise room.

Jonathan has massive skills.

But our mom needs more practice.

Six Flags

The next day, we went to Six Flags over St. Louis. The day started out very nicely.

But then it rained. And lots of rides were closed. Luckily, the log ride remained open, so off we went!

The Tony Hawk ride was also open.

As was my mom's favorite.

Unfortunately it rained a lot and we all got really wet. But before we left, we thought we ought to get a group shot of the four of us. But instead of asking someone to take it for us like normal people, we thought we'd try myspace style. Here are the results.

To be continued...

So I know that I've gotten terribly behind with this, though, in my defense, I didn't have internet for the first few days anyway. But here we go.

So the flight was long and bumpy. Not all too much to report on there. Oh, except for when we got on the Qantas plane in LA, I was so excited because we had those personal in flight entertainment screens on the back of the seat in front of you. You could watch TV shows or movies or play games! It was pretty awesome and it made our 14.5 hour flight slightly more bearable.

Then, while waiting in the Sydney airport to catch our flight to Melbourne, my mom and I made this awesome video:

So yeah. We arrived in Melbourne at 11:30am on Sunday the 11th. In the domestic terminal, as it was a flight from Sydney to Melbourne. And when we walked out to baggage claim and such, there was no one there to greet us! It was kind of sad. We eventually found Pippi and Phillip waiting for us in the international terminal. I guess they were confused.

We eventually got back to the Porter house, which is where I'm going to be living. I was then, of course, semi-overwhelmed by family and questions and stuff like that. I was shown my room, which is cozy. It's honestly smaller than I would have liked (probably about the size of your room, Jonathan), but it will work. There's a great view of downtown Melbourne from one of my windows, so that's cool. Let's have some pictures!

Roz's house is really neat overall. It's from the 19-teens, Edwardian period. And it's just so sprawling. Room after room after room and all these nooks and crannies. It's been described as sort of a storybook house, and I think I'd agree with that. Sometime I'll have to go through and photograph the house and just make an entry about that, because it would be quite interesting.

The Porter house is well known in our family for being quite eccentric. When I arrived, there wasn't a door on the upstairs toliet or shower. So when I got here the first day and wanted to have a shower, Eloise just told everyone to stay downstairs.

After my shower, Eloise came in and said she had a friend coming over, and would I like to go out, and I said sure, so we went. It was Eloise and Phillip (cousins), myself, and Tom (friend of Eloise.) I didn't actually ask where we were going, and they ended up taking me to a pub. It was a really nice pub though, hee, with a great view of the ocean. Phillip insisted on "starting my time here out right" and got me a beer, as I am of the legal drinking age here. I'm not really sure if I liked it...but oh well.

But it was still really gorgeous up there, so here are some pictures:

After that, Eloise, Phillip, and myself went to Pippi's house where even more of my family was gathering to greet me. Again, lots and lots of questions, hehe, but it was good to see everyone. Here is a picture of my mom and her three big sisters in Pippi's house:

After dinner, I went home to the Porter house, where Uncle David was in the front room talking with an Albanian opera singer. She apparently comes over quite a bit, usually pretty close to 11pm. She was in love with my accent (which I thought was weird, since there's so much American stuff here) and was trying to get me to say all this stuff, though I was just wanting to go to sleep, as I was jetlagged and exhausted. However, when I got to my room, I found that my cousin Michael and the Albanian opera singer's boyfriend were busy trying to put the doors on the shower and toliet, which are both right by my room. So there was lots of nice construction going on. And then the doors didn't fit the frames, so they brought out the electric saw! I've gotten to the point, though, that things like that don't phase me. I'm pretty used to coming home and there being yet another stranger in the living room or kitchen. It's just how things are here!

But anyway, yes, that was my first day!

More to come, of course.