VII-a. Extra Relocated Analytic Beer (slightly illegal)

Abstract program:

1. Mathematical problems from Jarnik's competition (all)
2. What three animals have neutral gender in Czech? (JR)
3. Do decimal digits of pi contain arbitrary sequences? (LP)

Detailed program:

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16.4. Friday 

11:00 Lubos arrives from Columbia, MO, checks into the hotel and discovers 
      that the good old US of A hasn't built to accomodate pedestrians
12:30 Lubos meets with David; both have lunch and take a tour of campus
16:00 Lubos gives a lecture at Wash U; dinner at Thai Cafe - David discovers
      that a lump of chicken made an unlawful entry into his vegetarian soup
19:30 Unsuccesful attempt to catch Honza at the airport; his United Express 
      flight was truthful to its name and by the time Lubos and David
      arrived, Honza was trying to find a way from Budget to the hotel.

20:30 Meeting at the hotel; in 30 seconds Honza manages to lose his keys;
      strangely, it takes him much more than 30 seconds to find them
21:00 We are trying to find Jindra's residence, about 10 miles to the North;
      finding it was most likely God's gift to weary travellers as three 
      Czechs driving in the night with little or no knowledge of St. Louis 
      and relying on Lubos' photocopied maps had about as much chance of
      finding anything as the three Stooges after complicated lobotomy
22:00 Refreshments in Jindra's home; she showed us enticing pictures of local
      parks and told us, how she were teaching poor unsuspecting kids at her
      elementary school the Czech song "Stodola, pumpa" (an act equivalent to
      Czech kids having to memorize Shakespeare's collected works backwards)
23:45 Driving David to campus and then returning to the hotel; Lubos' first
      navigational mistake: after exiting from I-70 we made several loops in
      an unknown territory to have finally discovered and followed a signpost
      to the hotel, which led us back onto the same Interstate that we left
      fifteen minutes ago; Honza demanded that for each navigational mistake 
      he would get extra 10 minutes of the precious morning sleep

01:00 Prolonged discussion whether to visit East St. Louis or not; we were
      fighting the temptation to visit this sacred place of the American 
      underworld; to accomplish this, we decided that we would have to buy
      several boxes of bullets and if caught, should pretend that we are 
      bullet-wholesalers, just bringing in "the stuff" (that idea gave
      rise to the motto: "So here we are with those bullets")
01:45 After realizing that neither Budget nor Avis would rent us a tank, we
      decided not to visit East St. Louis; afterall we could always hit each
      other repeatedly with a brick and look exactly like we actually 
      went there...
01:50 Lubos falls asleep as Honza is telling him a story how he and Jirka 
      went to a concert of a band, whose lead singer had rather vague idea of
      harmony, but could pack three negatives into a single English sentence.
02:00 Honza does NOT fall asleep thanks to Lubos' inhuman snoring that
      would have awakened even a night watchman at Cape Canaveral
03:00 Honza wonders, whether the acoustic energy of Lubos' snoring could be
      utilized to propel submarines
04:00 Honza experiences a temporary bout of insanity
05:00 Honza falls asleep

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17.4. Saturday

06:50 Lubos wakes up; Honza pretends to be sleeping
08:25 Honza gets up pondering a voluntary manslaughter
10:00 Delicious breakfast with David at St. Louis Bread Company 
      (Strawberry Salad, Sandwiches, French Onion Soup, tea, water, milk)
11:00 Tour of campus and adjacent Forest Park; we are being expelled from 
      the golf course, despite the fact that we are leaving on it much
      fewer marks than a flock of nearby ducks
11:20 We are passing an artificial cascading waterfall with a young woman, who
      was sitting lonely at its foot and looking pensively at an unspecified 
      point on the horizon (according to Honza, she was dreaming of being
      deep in the jungle and was awaiting her prince charming on the white
      horse; according to Lubos she was dreaming of being in Missouri and 
      was anxiously awaiting a delivery guy with pizza)

12:00 Journey to the south, Lubos' 2nd navigational mistake - he misses the fact
      that I-170 ends (we should have taken I-64)
13:00 We got off route 67 to buy some drinks and to stretch a bit; again
      we realized that the USA hadn't been built with pedestrians in mind
13:30 While driving in rural Missouri, we passed houses with inordinate piles
      of junk, old cars, buses and tractors behind them; apparently citizens 
      of Missouri possess some kind of inside information about the world's 
      supply of iron ore being on the verge of severe depletion and waste no 
      time stocking up on the precious commodity. Clever!
14:30 We arrive at the Taum Sauk Park and take a 3 mile loop to a waterfall
15:00 Frolicking at the waterfalls...or more precisely watertrickles...
15:30 As we followed upstream, we bumped into two nature-lovers watching a
      watersnake in a pool trying to digest a frog; however, the stubborn snake
      refused to move despite the fact that we instructed it so both in Czech
      and in English; frustrated, we engaged the snake in a staring contest;
      the snake won hands down even though it didn't have any
15:45 On our way back to the parking lot, we noticed that the woods bear
      an uncanny resemblance to those in the Blair Witch Project.
16:00 Short drive from Taum Sauk Park to Johnson Shut-Ins State Park;
      on the way there we follow a road that leads north, west AND south;
      clear proof that Missouri is the first quantum state of the Union, 
      as only in quantum mechanics can you go in three different directions 
      at the same time; Lubos takes pictures of this topographical gem
17:00 We found the head of the Shut-Ins trail; the Black River cascading 
      playfully among rocks and boulders was so enchanting that we decided
      to sacrifice the rest of the loop and spent an hour wading its shallow
      turqoise waters and sun-bathing on flat rocks surrounding its banks.

18:00 Journey back north through a tranquil countryside; we were supposed
      to meet Jindra and George in a St. Louis district known as Soulard
20:30 Lubos' 3rd navigational mistake; after missing an exit to Soulard
      we found ourselves crossing Mississippi and heading for - of all places
      - East St. Louis. We did 180 as soon as we could and soon recovered
      our originally intended path without being shot at
21:30 Due to our late return, Norton Cafe was full and, after roaming the 
      streets of Soulard for about 30 minutes, we settled in Hammerstone Cafe
      that also featured some live music (or for most part: live tuning)
22:30 It turned out that to get a meal at Hammerstone Cafe is less trivial 
      than we expected; first, our waitress told us that we cannot have 
      anything with potatoes, since the last one in the kitchen disappeared
      under rather mysterious circumstances; we have never quite figured out
      whether that last potato poured gasoline all over it and burned itself 
      to death or whether it simply jumped off the stove never to be found 
      again; few kiloseconds later, that same lovely waitress, who thought 
      that flirting with a gentleman sitting at the corner table was 
      perfectly equivalent to bringing us forks, finally returned 
      (in the meantime Lubos got the forks from independent sources) and
      announced that we also cannot have beer, prime rib and raspberries on
      our cake because - quote - "our kitchen is crazy", which explained why
      most potatoes in its jurisdiction have tendency to commit suicide.
23:00 Honza suggests that we should steal their tablecloth to show them that
      "we won't sell our hides cheap"; after some internal negotiations we 
      decided to leave the tablecloth on the table as part of the tip
23:30 Having beer, hot chocolate and a cake in a Cafe on Delmar Loop close
      to David's place; nice touch after a beautiful day
00:50 going to bed

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18.4 Sunday

07:30 Lubos gets up with songs on his lips
08:30 Honza gets up with cusswords on his lips
09:00 Checking out from the hotel and heading for the Arch
09:30 Lubos' 4th navigational mistake: after missing a turn we found
      ourselves heading for the tantalizing edge of East St. Louis again
10:00 Lubos cannot refrain from dipping his hands into the murky waters
      of Mississippi; Honza admires the Arch glistening in the morning sun
10:15 We bought tram tickets to the top of the Arch; since we had few extra
      minutes, we took a quick walk to nearby downtown
10:40 We almost missed our tram, because we got stuck in the security line;
      apparently most people in front of us had scrambled steel for breakfast
      as all of them set off the metal detector despite the fact that - one
      by one - they took off all the metal articles attached to their bodies
11:00 Admiring the truly beatiful view of Illinois and Missouri from the Arch
11:10 Admiring the truly beautiful view of a lady accompanying us in a 
      tight capsule on our way back down
11:20 Attempting to break the world's record in running through the Museum of
      Western Exploration; the attempt was unsuccesful due to Lubos' sudden
      infatuation with a moving figurine of a sergeant of the US Army

12:00 Arriving in the City Museum that was located in what looked like an old
      factory building in a ghost district of St. Louis, except it had a 
      school bus overhanging from the roof - which we took as a good sign
12:30 After a little difficulty finding parking, we enjoyed the numerous
      attractions inside and outside - as it turned out, the museum was
      designed as an amusement park with plethora of caves, monkey trails,  
      slides and an inspiring exposition of artwork by local kids
13:45 when we were about 200 yards away from Budget return and just pulling 
      into a gas station we came closest to a traffic accident; a young lady
      in the next lane had some trouble deciding whether she wants to apply
      her lipstick or brakes and she were vigorously discussing this pressing 
      issue on her cellular phone with a good friend of hers
14:30 After checking in at the airport, we finally had some time to sit 
      down at the Rib-Cafe and have our first, and actually also last, meal 
      of the day - the brunchinner! (breakfast & lunch & dinner)
15:00 BBQ chicken and sandwich with some Foster and cheesecake on top of that
      made the final exclamation point after our trip to St. Louis
15:55 Lubos takes off 
18:15 Honza takes off (with an hour delay)
19:00 Lubos gets stuck in Minneapolis
02:00 Honza gets to bed as usual
03:00 Lubos gets to bed way past his bedtime

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