Minneapolis, MN (plus Hudson, WI & St. Paul)

This weekend we flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota for a wedding. Megan was the Maid of Honor in her friend Jackie’s wedding that took place in her husband Peter’s hometown of Hudson, Wisconsin. Friday night we had a rehearsal at the wedding location which was followed by an early dinner at Peter’s parents home. Once we got back to our hotel Bryan decided that the night was still young and his tummy had room for more food. So we headed over to 112 Eatery by cab where we had some good food.

Saturday was unusually cold for early October making it very unusual for an outdoor wedding and reception, even snowing in the early morning. The wedding still took place outdoors along the lakeshore in Willow River State Park, but the reception had to be moved indoors to an ugly church. Jackie was pretty disappointed, and spent the last hours before the wedding trying to decorate it. During the ceremony Bryan acted as the unofficial photographer, and a car pulled alongside the guests acted as a stereo system due to the parks power being out. The wedding was very budget and very interesting to say the least. After the reception we drove through St. Paul and took some pictures of the Capitol and other buildings. It looked like a pretty cool city. It is just weird that it is so close to it’s twin. Like somehow if they would have merged into one city, they would have felt more like a city city. Anyway after seeing St. Paul we headed over to Lucia’s Wine Bar, where we had a very reasonably priced and good dinner. Bryan’s favorite was the pumpkin soup, claiming it was one of the best soups he has had and Megan loved the Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato and cookie desert.

After dinner we headed back to The Ivy Hotel, where we had been staying in downtown Minneapolis. After finding out that the newlyweds were also staying the night here we had room service send them some chocolate covered strawberries. The hotel was really nice, probably the nicest hotel we have ever stayed in and came ate an Expedia bargain for only about $100 a night. It seemed like there were also quite a few perks that we enjoyed. Each morning room service sent us complimentary tea and newspaper. The room had complimentary Fiji water, magazines and plenty of well proportioned bathroom items from the spa. The hotel also had on demand movies that were still in theaters, which was something that we had never seen before. We watched Sunshine Cleaning, which was pretty good. There were two downsides to the hotel: the internet was not free and neither was the parking. Megan thought she had secured a coupon rate for free valet parking only to discover that it was not free and we paid $24 a day, when there was $5 a day parking next door. Other than that we loved the hotel. The room was really big, everything was new and the bathroom had a large tub and shower. The bed was really comfortable and it made us really wish we had a king.

Sunday morning we walked around downtown Minneapolis, which was almost completely devoid of human life. We attributed to it being a sunday and that the people who live here are indubitably devout because there were about 2 churches on every corner and another reason was that it was cold and nothing was open. However, everyone appeared to be hiding at Key’s Café, which was one of the only places in town open on Sunday. Our outing in town allowed us to experience the Minneapolis Sky way, which is a network of bridges that connect buildings to each-other so people can get around town and escape any harsh weather. How it works is each building’s second floor is like a public space connected to the bridges and it feels very much like a mall in there. One building made you walk through a Macy’s to use the sky way. Pretty smart we think. Megan debuted her wool purse she bought in Portugal this weekend and to her delight she was getting compliments on it left and right from different women in Minneapolis. Its popularity made us wonder if we should begin importing them.

Our last stop was at the Mall of America (how could we not?) which is right by the airport. We were expecting to hate it, but some how it was completely fascinating to us and we really had fun there. It didn’t hurt that Bryan found a whole store dedicate to the art that is Frisbee. It was a tri level loop of stores and the mall changed looks as you walked around for some reason. Like different sections looked like different malls. It was also packed like the week before Christmas, which we suspect is normal. We heard the mall employs 12,000 people and we can only imagine how much money it brings in. Our flight back to Orange County was very comfortable in first class. Two flights to Europe in 2009 and a flight to NYC in 2008 has granted us preferred status which now grants us automatic  first class upgrades.  Apparently in the eyes of US Airways we are now “frequent fliers” which is hard to believe considering that our first flight to Europe this year was cheaper than our flight to Minneapolis.