Oh Yeah, Minnesota

I just spent the past five days in Minnesota, visiting my dear friend from college, the one and only Joggles. She is in med school in Minneapolis, living in a frat house on campus that used to be a real frat but is now a huge, falling apart but still cool house where med students live and throw parties after finals. Our spring breaks happened to fall at the same time, so while my girls were skiing in Utah with their rich friends, I was cooking chili and going on bike rides with my poor friends (yay student loans!).

My overall thoughts on the Minneapolis/St. Paul area:
They love St. Patrick's Day!
Minneapolis is mostly full of frat boys and sorority girls who like to get drunk and dance, and this makes for fun people-watching.
Both cities are crazy about the arts!
Hockey is holy.
It's really cold. And also really beautiful.

I arrived on Saturday, to be whisked to the hugest St. Patty's celebration I've ever been to. Joggles and I first met our other Tufts friend, Dina, at this big Irish celebration in the Landmark Center, where Dina works as their events planner. How different our jobs are!! She has an assistant, carries around walkie-talkies and is absolutely in charge from 7 am on, while I show up to work around 5:30 pm, tutor and care for two girls who often think they're in charge, cook dinner for us and finally get them moving toward bed. Totally different lifestyles, but cool to be let in on hers! She gave us a tour of the Landmark Center, which used to be the post office and old courthouse but has recently been restored and turned into various events rooms and museums (including a musical instrument museum). It was really, really beautiful, with stained glass windows and detailed ceilings and gorgeous wood carvings everywhere. And these adorable young girls were performing traditional, Irish dances to live musicians that were breaking it down on the fiddle. Very fun.

Then, Jogs and I joined her boyfriend at this bar in St. Paul that was so packed I literally couldn't move without bumping into someone. The bar itself had multiple rooms over three floors, and added huge tented areas over the attached parking lot in order to accommodate the masses. We got drunk off green beer at 4 in the afternoon, surrounded by even drunker people dancing to hilarious DJ music. Everyone was dressed up in hats and shamrocks and painted beards, just celebratin' away. It was quite fun. Then later that night, we ate greasy good bar food at this place in St. Paul and came back to Jog's house to pass out.

Sunday brought us free brunch at this restaurant located in the old train depot of Minneapolis. Joggles's family treated us to an enormous breakfast buffet, and then walked us around the station, which has also been restored and turned into a hotel/restaurant and skating rink. Then we went back to her childhood home in Edina and played with their adorable 1 1/2 year old puppy. Jog's mom is a teacher, so we ranted about the education system, the school she teaches in, and all about writing (she's an avid reader). It was really cool for me to talk with an older adult again about children and education...I am a nerd and miss ranting about kids with my college professors. That night, we played Wii, made dinner and watched the Gophers play hockey. Damn, Minnesotans love their winter sports! All of Joggles's housemates were so into that hockey game, while I winced at the beatings and finally pulled out my computer to play scrabble so I wouldn't have to focus solely on ice hockey. With this distraction, I enjoyed the rest of the game, which the Gophers excitedly won. Then we watched some weird movie with the boy from Home Alone about two couples who decide group sex is the answer to all their problems, but in the end it actually wasn't (shockingly).

Monday took us to the zoo, where we saw some weirdo deer relative, bears and wolves and boas, oh my! We saw two raccoons wrestling on the Minnesota trail, and spent a half hour watching the adorable Japanese Snow Monkeys chase each other. The habitats in this zoo are so huge and well taken care of that it was just really fun to walk through and stare at cute animals who were clearly happy with their captivated lives. We also saw geckos and frogs, got to pet velvety sharks, watched dolphins flirt, and learned that Pumas live in the north of MN. Also, we learned that fisher cats are prego for 360 days, and then instantly get pregnant again so that they spend all their adult life pregnant, nursing or both. Lord have mercy.

That night was the actual St. Patty's day, so we went into Minneapolis, but since it was BLIZZARDING and BELOW FREEZING, no one was out. We got free shots from an old high school friend and went to this dance bar where 20-and-30-somethings were acting like college freshman. We got a good laugh and some good drinks out of it, then went home, where we realized Jogs had locked her keys in her room. We could still get into the actual house, so we curled up together on the couches in their home theater and slept until noon the next day, when...

the locksmith came! He let us in the room and all was well. That afternoon, we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which is known for it's ancient Asian collection. And my was this collection amazing and impressive. They had tons of statues, paintings, screen prints, wood prints, on and on from ancient India, China, Korea, Japan, Western Africa and Egypt. We saw some inspiring Buddhist art, some crazy African masks, and a room modeled after the tea ceremony rooms of Japan. We then breezed through the very small modern art collection, but because we slept in so late and then spent so much time in the ancient art section, the museum closed.

That night, the lovely Dina joined us along with Joggles' friend from high school, and we ate boatloads of chili while drinking wine and playing Balderdash. I don't remember who won, but I do remember that I wasn't last. Then we watched another movie called "Caffeine," which I would actually recommend. It's a British comedy made in 2006, set in a cafe in London, mostly about relationships and the woes and dramas that come along with them. It was really cute, and kept us laughing.

Wednesday started a bit earlier than the others because J and I had a bike ride in mind. We read about this long, woodsy trail in St. Paul and decided to check it out. According to its website, the first nine miles had been cleared, but I guess this didn't refer to the recent snowstorm because it actually wasn't cleared at all. I had to abandon bike on two separate occasions to avoid falling on me head, and after only ten minutes we decided to turn around. While I was cruising down a hill, enjoying the fresh, crisp air, I noticed a snowy patch and tapped on the breaks. Turned out the snow patch was an insanely deep puddle of icy water that brought my bike to a dead halt and drenched my feet. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't give Joggles a warning and she skid into the same situation. Then we were both drenched and laughing.

So, gave up this trail and decided to bike along the Mississippi River instead, which was completely gorgeous and much safer. We biked to the Minnehaha Falls, which is a river that feeds into the Mississippi but has a beautiful waterfall before they meet up. The joke from Joggles's childhood is to try to say the river's name without laughing (haha!). Anyway, the waterfall gushed excitedly down the middle of the hill but was surrounded by beautiful, dripping icicles. I had never seen anything like it. The rest of the park was covered in snow, but the sun was shining brightly down. It was truly breathtaking. We got off our bikes and walked around, then sat by the running river and enjoyed the view. Then we got too cold (despite her claims that 40 degrees is actually really warm) and biked back along the Mississippi, stopping to spit some of our boogers in the river so that a bit of ourselves would be in it forever. Once we got back, we showered, ate leftover chili and played Nintendo Wii until it was time for me to go home.

The vacation flew by. It was completely wonderful to hang out with Joggles and Dina again, and enjoyable to see such a different part of the country. But also really cold! It was nice to be welcomed by my loving Dave and my loving cats and the warmer climate once I returned home. But oh do I miss Joggles! And being in nature like that was wonderful. It made me realize how quickly I've gotten wrapped up in the vibe of NYC, but how I simultaneously love and loathe it. Overall I'm absolutely psyched to be living in New York, but hearing the water running and the birds whistling and the wind blowing in the trees of the Minnehaha Falls was amazing. I can't wait to go camping again!! Oh springtime, come come, come faster!