Livin' in the big city

I've been to Minneapolis many, many times, but always as a tourist. The main purpose of going to Minneapolis is usually to see the Twins play and then a trip to the Mall of America. Or doing some other touristy thing like the zoo or Valley Fair. Never have I experienced Minneapolis the way we did last week. At one time in my life I wanted to live in Minneapolis more than anything in the world. Well, I got over that and I'm happy I did. Although it was quite interesting to kind of live there for a week. I love finding places that are big with the locals. One thing we really enjoyed was a place called the Global Market. It was in a building that Sears and Roebuck built in, I believe, 1929. I took a picture of it because I thought it was so cool. It looked art deco which I love. At night the Midtown letters on top glow in bright green neon. Now the building is used as loft spaces, offices, and the Global Market. The Global Market is made up of many different booth type spaces. Some places sell handmade goods, others are restaurants. It's kind of like an indoor street fair, but everything looks like it could come from Pier One Imports. There's also mini grocery stores with products from all over the world. That's what I would love about living in a big city. Sometimes I get frustrated because I subscribe to Cooking Light and sometimes they have ingredients that you just can't get around here. We ate at the Global Market three different times. The first time we had Mexican, the second time Greek. The third time Fred went back to the Greek stand and I went to a place called Andy's Diner. It looked like an actual retro diner. It was way cool. I ordered a hot roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and it was the best meal I had there. This was on the second to last day in the cities and this meal tasted like a home cooked meal. It really hit the spot. We also got some dessert at the Norwegian booth one day. Very good. I will not however miss the traffic in Minneapolis. I told Fred we had been there too long because by mid-week we no longer needed a map to get to where we needed to be. We only got kind of lost once. We were staying at my uncle and aunt's house and one day the construction crew decided to close one of our exits. We thought we had found the detour, but ended up going back the way we had just come. We saw signs that said "Exit closed use alternative routes". Not being from there we had no idea what alternative routes to use. We called my aunt and she told us the alternative routes. The hospital itself is in kind of a rough part of town. Although there are some nice places around the rough areas. We stayed at the Midtown Sheraton which is next to the Midtown building. Very nice hotel. The hospital put us up there for five nights. We saw the prices and they start at $250 a night. If I ever hit it rich I would have no problem paying that much to stay there. Those were the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in. One night we decided to relax a little and went to the hotel bar which was also really nice. And since we were in swanky hotel we decided to be goofy and get swanky drinks on our first round. I ordered a Cosmopolitan and Fred had a Martini. Then Fred talked me into a Long Island Ice Tea. I hadn't had a drink since before I was pregnant with Cordelia so those drinks really did me in. I sure slept good that night. Also around the hospital there were some really nice old mansions. One looked like a castle. I wanted to take a picture of it to show the boys, but we never got around to it. I don't want to say it was fun to see Minneapolis in the way we did because of our circumstances for being there, but it was interesting in experiencing the city in a new way. It really is a cool city and I look forward to finding some more cool non-tourist areas on a fun future trip there.