More Photos of the Twin Cities

 

Yesterday I had an excellent birthday. I slept late and then watched a documentary on the Holiday Train that made me want to ride it. Luxury accommodations and playing music for appreciative children? Heck yeah! But of course if you're on the Holiday Train, you don't get to enjoy how beautiful it is. Then I went over to my neighbor's house for lunch and spent some time talking to her and playing with her nine-week-old Havanese puppy Lucy.

Then I went on a walk, did some word game puzzles, met Travalon for dinner downtown after my adoration hour, and went to Rich's house for the last of my cassata. Kathbert came too, since she had been plant-sitting my air plants so she brought them over, and she said how funny it was that I made my own birthday cake.

Here, as promised, are some more photos from our weekend in the Twin Cities. First, this is Travalon in the British pub on New Year's Eve.

Here are more photos he took from the skyways on Saturday morning. This is what that lit-up building looks like during the day.

This is rime on the trees. It was a very foggy drive to Rochester, and we saw rime on all the trees on the way down. It was so pretty, but we couldn't stop to take pictures on the highway.

These are designs in the floor of the convention center of people doing, I guess, typical Minnesota things like fishing, playing hockey, and waterskiing.

 Here are some photos from the State Capitol in St. Paul.

Their Christmas tree isn't as impressive as the one in our State Capitol.

This Lutheran church was across the street.

And this statue of Leif Erikson is right nearby.

Here are photos of our sparkly hotel lobby, where we actually rang in the New Year:

Here are photos from Minnehaha Falls.

This guy made a snowbird. Isn't it cute?

I took a photo of Travalon, but it didn't turn out as well. Here is the old Minnehaha Depot.

This Viking ship thing is outside of the Vikings' stadium. We saw it from the train.

The Loon Cafe, where we had a very late lunch on Saturday.

Here are some of the lights of Minneapolis on New Year's Eve.

This is inside the IDS Tower.

This is the tower of Central Lutheran Church.

Here is Travalon in the snug at the Irish pub we went to on Sunday.

Here are a couple of photos from the Purple Goat, the restaurant we went to with Ma and Pa Hat.

Next door was a chandelier store. It was so beautiful in there!

This one was my favorite, but it costs over $1700.

Here is Dino at the Sinclair Plaza.

Now I'm back to work, and I had to set my alarm for the first time in twelve days. Even though I could sleep later because of working from home, I still only woke up when the alarm went off. It will be a real shock when I actually have to get up in time to go to campus. At least the mornings are slowly getting lighter...

Famous Hat

Stone Arch Bridge and St. Anthony Falls

 

This morning Travalon and I got up and tried going toward the downtown shopping district in the skyways. We got much further than earlier, but nothing was open because of the observed holiday. I did see this Bollywood dance moves poster outside of an Indian restaurant:

We ended up going to the Starbucks in our hotel for breakfast and coffee, just like yesterday, since they seemed to be the only thing open. I sat on this couch in the hotel lobby:

I assume the cherries are in honor of the most famous sculpture at the Walker Sculpture Garden, which is a giant spoon with a giant cherry on it. Then we checked out of the hotel and drove to where we could walk on the Stone Arch Bridge. Here's a view of what it looks like at the start.

What is this mysterious pyramid?

And all these mysterious footbridges?

From the bridge we could see St. Anthony Falls.

I like this crazy building with the glowing yellow section.

Here we are in front of the falls.

The bridge curved around, so that you could see the bridge from the bridge! We only went as far as where it curved. Someday we will have to walk the whole bridge.

Here is what it looks like facing back toward where we had started.

Then we drove to Rochester and had a late lunch with Ma and Pa Hat, who treated us! We went to a place near their house called the Purple Goat, and we had to rearrange our packing job in the car because their car was trapped in the garage due to a power failure. We had excellent burgers and way too many fries, so that Travalon and I did not eat again until after 11 pm. Then he and I stopped by the Sinclair Plaza in St. Charles, Minnesota, where he got some Dino stuff: a mug, a hat, and a small stuffed Dino to go with his medium-sized stuffed Dino. We drove home listening to the music on my phone, and the only things Travalon made me skip were hardcore rap and stuff with too much auto-tuning, and honestly those weren't my favorite songs either. I like all the songs on my phone, but some I love, and he liked those too. Today we discovered that he likes The Whispers, for example. So the drive was enjoyable for me because we were listening to some of my favorite songs, and it was educational for him. Win-win!

Travalon just gave me one of my birthday presents, and it's a collection of mini Funko Pops from The Office, but it appears to have two Andys and no Kevin or Jim. I guess that's what happens when you buy things off of eBay... 

Famous Hat

Happy 2023!

 

Welcome to 2023, everyone! This morning Travalon and I walked a few blocks to St. Olaf's, a modern church with a surprisingly good choir. The ordinary parts of the Mass were all based on Christmas carol tunes. Then we went to the Irish pub nearby for lunch, and I feel bad because they said they closed at ten last night since nobody was there, while the British pub we were at was packed. Maybe we should have gone to the Irish pub - you'd think that would be a popular New Year's Eve destination. We actually left the British pub about half an hour before midnight because it was getting so packed, and we rang in the new year sitting in the sparkly lobby of our hotel. I took photos with my phone, but either they haven't uploaded to the cloud, or they haven't downloaded from the cloud to Boethius. I suppose they will show up someday...

After lunch we debated about taking the light rail right to the Mall of America, but the weather was mild so we took a walk to Nicollet Island. Here are some photos.

Travalon had a Grain Belt beer at the Loon Cafe, and it was surprisingly good.

This is a little pedestrian bridge to the island. 

This is on the other side of the river, not on the island. I thought I had been here with friends back in college, but at that time it was a public space where they had concerts, and now it appears to be apartments or condos. Of course, this was thirty years go.

Here is the little pedestrian bridge again. It dates from the nineteenth century.

This is a mysterious stone arch on Nicollet Island.

From the island you can see this dam or whatever that causes a waterfall.

We had a drink at this restaurant/inn on the island. They were coffee drinks with vanilla vodka, peppermint, and cream. Some waitress there was showing another patron her #4 Brett Favre Vikings jersey, which is something we really didn't need to see.

The Stone Arch Bridge is a well-known landmark, and we could see it from the bridge to the island, but we didn't go walk across it.

Here are some things we saw on our walk back. This looks like a church, but apparently it was always designed to be an insurance company building.

We passed a bar and grill with a Packers G in the window, so it seemed like a safe place to watch the game in enemy territory, but alas, it was closed today. We went back to the Irish pub and watched the first half of the game there, and as we were walking back to the hotel, we could see this building lit up red, white, and blue on top. Two days ago it was green, as you can see from a previous post.

And here is what it looked like last night, with swirls of magenta, yellow, and teal. 

We came back to our hotel room to watch the second half of the game, and the Packers really killed the Vikings, so toward the end of the game both teams put in their backup quarterbacks. Apparently all the teams who had to lose did in order for the Packers to get into the playoffs, so now they just have to beat the Lions, who killed the Bears today. We'll see... It was an exciting game, with a punt returned for a touchdown by Green Bay, and a bunch of turnovers in our favor. I'm sure that's why we were so far ahead. So Special Teams scored a touchdown, the defense scored at least one with a pick six, and Rodgers himself walked one into the end zone. Very exciting!

After the game we went to the pool, since the college kids' convention ended earlier today so we figured they would all be gone. (I can tell the difference in internet speed tonight without them all jamming it up!) There were still a whole gang of them sitting by the edge of the pool, but we had no trouble swimming around for about twenty minutes, then we actually had the sauna to ourselves. We had a late dinner down at the hotel restaurant - man, is their food good! Tomorrow we will head home, and I will post more photos in the coming days.

Famous Hat