Twin Cities

Well, what can I say about the weekend? It was a pretty fun filled and enjoyable weekend to say the least. I left at 6AM on Saturday morning and arrived at Alyssa’s place at around 9:30AM. We chatted a little before she took me around and showed me different places in the Twin Cities. We walked around the Sculptor Garden which was really impressive. All the times I’ve been to the Twin Cities, I’ve never even heard of the Sculptor Gardens. There were some amazing sculptors in and around the gardens. After that we took a peek into the basilica in Minneapolis. It would have been nice to walk around it, but there was a wedding. Oh, I should say that the weather was most perfect over the weekend. The humidity level was low and the actual weather never did hit 90 which made for a pleasant walk. Alyssa then drove me around the different neighborhoods within Minneapolis and I got to see how they all differ. We had lunch at an Indian restaurant and the food was good and authentic. Once lunch got done, we walked to where the new Guthrie Theater is located. Talk about a primo spot to build the theater. It’s located right next to the Mississippi river and also next to the Old Mill site. There’s a couple of really neat paths around the Guthrie. From there we saw where the 35W bridge collapsed and just looking at the rubble brought back some memories of Highland Towers. We made a quick stop in the apartment before going to Mass. Alyssa’s parish is definitely a liberal parish and it was a good Mass experience. We had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant called Peninsula and I was very impressed with the food. We had a couple of appetizers – Popiah, Lobak and Roti Canai. For my entrée, I had Asam Laksa while she had sizzling tofu. I had a bite of her entrée and it was very good. For dessert, I had Ice Kacang and also ordered the peanut pancake. I definitely got my Malaysian fix for sure. After dinner, we had tickets to Comedy Sportz which was an improvisational comedy “battle” between two teams. It was laugh out loud funny and it was the first time I saw something like that. At Comedy Sportz, Marie and Alex, Alyssa’s friends joined us. We then grabbed a bite at Old Chicago and stayed till around 1:30AM.

On Sunday, Alyssa drove to Hastings, where she’s from to let the dog out. I got to see where she grew up and the neighborhood. Oh, in Hastings, they had this huge Catholic Church the dwarfed everything surrounding it and it was mighty impressive. We had breakfast at the neighborhood diner which had an excellent meal. The rest of the day was spent at the Minnesota State Fair. You know how much I love state fairs and I do have to say that the Minnesota State Fair was a better fair than Iowa (I can’t believe I wrote that in my blog! But credit has to be given when credit it due). Everything is much more spread out and even though there were several hundred thousand people there you never really felt too claustrophobic. I had a great time at the fair and spent a lot of time at the fine at building looking at the different art exhibits. They were mighty impressive to say the least. It was such a neat experience at the state fair. Alyssa was volunteering at the Red Cross while I was walking around at the fair. The biggest, neatest surprise was me bumping into three Drake friends who were a couple of years my junior who lived on my floor and who majored in Psychology. The chances of something like that happening are so minute. We were all excited to see one another and exchanged e mail address and I gave them my card. Talk about a small world. After Alyssa was done volunteering, we walked around the fair together and grabbed a quick bite to eat. The rest of the evening was spent chatting in the apartment.

I headed back to DM the next day and while I was in the Twin Cities, John called me and wondered what I was doing. I told him that I was headed back to DM and would drop by once I got into town. We chatted and caught up with one another then watched a delightful French movie called, “My Best Friend”. We had dinner at the Drake Diner before watching another movie. This time, it was entitled, “No End in Sight” which is a documentary about the war in Iraq and how the Bush Administration got it wrong big time. Go see it if you can because it was a very well made documentary and it kind of scary when you think about the different decisions that’s being made by a select few people without the consultation of others. Needless to say it was a pretty long day for me yesterday and I’m still kind of recovering from it. Overall, it was a good weekend. Don’t think I’ll be driving or going on any short trips in the foreseeable future.