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