meet me in st. louis...

Friday was oleoresin capsicum day. Saturday was stay-up-all-night and drink in St. Louis day (or night?). Saturday itself was pretty low-key and then we all decided to leave at 5pm. It takes a little over 2 hours to get there from Fort Leonard Wood but we made and we decided to check into our hotel before heading off. We stayed at The Hyatt right by the Arch. Here's the Arch from our window :)

We went to Ranoush for dinner, which is an Arabic restaurant. I've had Arabic food before and when I had it (which was like in 8th grade lol) I didn't care for it too much. A couple of weeks ago I went to Aladdin's and I was blown away by their food. I had their Arayiss "pita-pitza" which was a toasted pita with hummus, seasoned lean ground beef, parsley and pine nuts. It was SO SO GOOD. Since then I have been craving Arabic food, so going to Ranoush was nice :)

The food was excellent. They ran out of a lot of things though, including lamb, and lamb & rice is apparently a very popular dish in the Middle East. We ordered quite a few appetizers:

- libbeh - Arabic yogurt with olive oil and spices...kind of reminded me of sour cream. I do not like sour cream, so I didn't like this one very much.

- hummus - best damn hummus I have ever had!

- falafel - it's made from ground chickpeas and some other things, then deep-fried. Vegetarian. It was delicious.

- kibbeh - seasoned lean ground beef in a little shell that's deep fried, like the falafel. Also very delicious.

Of course everything was served with warm pita bread :)

For our entrees, I ordered the beef shawarma. I didn't really understand the difference between that and the beef kafta which sounded the same, but the beef shawarma was amazingly good. It was lean seasoned beef that almost had a chargrilled taste to it with sauteed onions. It wasn't salty or greasy at all and the beef itself was flavorful but light. It was served on more pita and with a huge vegetable salad on the side. I didn't finish it and I felt bad, especially after Zaid told me that I didn't eat anything lol but I stuffed my face. It was just like a never-ending plate of food! E had the chicken shawarma, basically the same thing. It was also very tasty!

Afterwards we went to the Nara Cafe & Hookah Bar for drinks and hookah, obviously :) Last time I smoked hookah (before going to Missouri) was probably 2-3 years ago at this place by campus. I probably won't smoke it again unless E & I go back to Zaid's house when I go back to Missouri in April for E's MPBOLC graduation :)

Mingo (his nickname) and Zaid

After staying there for awhile, we barhopped. Lots of cool little bars, but my favorite was the Jive & Wail. Underneath it said "dueling pianos" so we decided to check it out.

It was 2 dudes and 2 pianos on stage who take requests and will practically play ANYTHING. When we walked in, we saw this:

This was at like 0130 and there was this old guy dancing on stage. He was so cute! They were playing "I've Got Friends in Low Places" :)

I was OBVIOUSLY drinking :)

They played some other stuff including "F*ck You" by Cee Lo Green but at 0200 they kicked us all out because by then it was 0300 and that's when the bar closed...

it actually sucked going that night because EVERYTHING closed an hour early. Zaid kept telling me how there is "24 hours of drinking in Las Vegas and that we need to go" haha. I don't really drink all that much, just once in awhile, and when I do it's not very much. I get drunk the quickest but also sober up the quickest. A few sips of wine will get my face turning red like in the picture above...it's quite sad, really!

I can understand Zaid for wanting to go out and drink and party. In Saudi Arabia, people drink, but it isn't socially acceptable...you drink in the home, but you don't go out and party like you do here. He graduates at the same time E does but then has another two weeks in Missouri for a course that he will have to take, and afterwards he goes back to Saudi Arabia.

We took a shuttle back to our hotel at like 0530...there were some other people who were very drunk riding with us, along with another man who just so happened to be black. I'm proud to be an American, but sometimes my fellow Americans are so damn ignorant. They said a few racial slurs to the black man. Then one of the guys (who had a scarf) wrapped it around his head and said to Zaid "look, I look like someone from your country" and Zaid just gave him this look...then one of the girls with that guy mentioned how Zaid kept giving him looks and asked "are you going to kill us because he said that? Just so you know he isn't with us!" :/

We finally got back to our hotel room, had a good time ;) then passed out and woke up 4 hours later. We went back to the area where Ranoush was because the other night I saw some plush Chain Chomps (Mario, anyone?) in the window, but when we were finished with dinner they were already closed. There just so happened to be a Chipotle next door, so we ate there :)

We then went to FroYo, which I've always wanted to try. They didn't have the taro flavor which I really wanted, but what we got was delicious.

Low fat red velvet yogurt on the bottom (that tasted just like red velvet cake!) and low fat cake batter yogurt on top with fresh strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and slivered almonds. We devoured it. E loved it, and so did I.

We went into a few stores then headed back to Fort Leonard Wood. For the rest of the evening we just relaxed, played COD4 nazi zombies and watched The Living Dead. Him & I are perfect for each other :)

And now I'm back in Ohio :( I almost contemplated staying another day, because Missouri randomly got hit with a lot of snow/freezing rain this morning. It wasn't bad by FLW, but about 45min out it was REALLY bad. I saw a lot of accidents, including a flipped-over semi. I decided to just keep going, because according to the weather forecast, Illinois and Indiana and Ohio would be fine. The beginning of Illinois was bad but the rest of the drive was fine.

Oh, and today must have been "cut off Melissa" day. The worst was when I was in St. Louis...the highway split off into two exits and this woman went into the wrong exit then quickly crossed over and cut right in front of me. The weather was bad, there was a lot of pick-up off the road from her car and for a moment I couldn't see anything. The exit ramp was also a turn so I was very scared that I would either hit her, hit the barrier or have the car behind me rear end me. Thankfully none of the above happened, but it still scared the shit out of me. Stupid drivers :(

Oh, and I still do NOT have my wedding band. We placed the order before the New Year and still nothing. I called Jared today and apparently the band did come in, but it didn't pass their inspection standards. So that's good that they're picky and they want to make sure you get a quality ring. The bad news, is that their vendor is over in Japan, and with everything that is going on over there, the band probably will not come in until May, probably after the wedding. They said they have another vendor that they use that will create a replica of the ring in the size that I need in about 3-4 weeks at no extra charge.

And speaking of Japan, I still can't believe everything that is happening over there. Still keeping them in my prayers ♥