John Vandenaart’s weekly column on pcactive.nl is something that loyal readers have been waiting for. This time it is about his trip to Saint Louis in the US. Read his column about this here. You can read John’s column from last week about Livin Blues here.
Remember? My daughter. American. Married. Well, that is slightly repeated in Saint Louis; the groom’s birthplace. We went in that direction more by force than by invitation. A week earlier than the reception, because my daughter really liked that.
We book. Early in 2024. A little later in 2024, my daughter decided to go a week later herself, because she liked that even more. So my wife and I have to entertain ourselves. In a strange city. In a foreign country. I thought the Tripadvisor offer was very poor, but as it turned out, the same Tripadvisor has an explicit preference for paid attractions.
Once I had set the USB port of my mobile phone to Android Auto, the real world opened up thanks to Google Maps (which works seriously better in America than in Europe). The fantastic zoo: free. The swamp walk: free. The history museum: free. Pictured with Chuck Berry: Free. The botanical garden: a tip. The Gateway Arch: negligible for the spectacle offered. Not free: the Holocaust museum here. But that was more than compensated for by the moving experience we were given. You can say what you want about the Americans, but they take a big approach! More later…