Did you know that Minneapolis is the birthplace of Target? Nor did I, but what a wonderful surprise bonus to my business trip! Because there is one on every corner, I’ve been to Tar-jay every day!!
Minneapolis is quite possibly the nicest city on earth.* When I say nice, I mean pretty, hip and very very friendly. Case in point: after scoping the strip of fabulous shops and bars and restaurants along the Nicollet Mall area of downtown Minneapolis, my buddy Amy and I settled on Barrio Tequilleria. We munched on pork belly tacos and I had probably one of the best cocktails ever: “Enter the Dragon,” a passion fruit margarita infused with red pepper. Simply delicious. (Side note: I seem to be enjoying a tequila renaissance. In addition to being the basis for delicious cocktails, tequila doesn’t make me hung over. Woo hoo!)
Our waiter not only gave us tips on where to go next and his life story. Seriously, with a table full of customers, what waiter does that? Toward the end of the meal, super nice exchange with a Minnesotan #247 occurred. Two women came up and asked if they could take the table and chairs currently linked to our table. We said yes and after 12-15 apologies and an increasingly awkward 20 minute conversation, they finally left with their table and we returned to our pork belly. Five minutes later, our friendly waiter announced that the ladies had bought us a round of drinks. Jesus! We gave them a table not a kidney!
Meanwhile, the weekend was peppered with tornado warnings and touchdowns. Luckily for me, I happened to be accompanied by my very own personal Dorothy in the form of my friend Amy who grew up in Tornado alley in Kansas. Our attempt to view the mighty Mississippi was thwarted when low but urgent wailing began to resonant throughout the city. I turned to Dorothy and the look on her face said it all: these were tornado warning sirens. She started scanning the sky, quickly pointing out what was going on: “Those are the wall clouds. You see that cloud there, with the dangly bit, that’s the part that forms the tornado when it touches the ground, etc. etc.”
She became mesmerized and perhaps a bit paralyzed by the prospect of the tornado and probably from the fearful memories of racing to her grandma’s external basement when the big storms were coming. Clueless about the storm, but empathetic to my friend, I suggested we step into the Crowne Plaza hotel we were just walking past. From the safety of the internal hotel bar, Amy was able to watch the weather channel, while I settled into the NY subway series. 45 minutes later, the Yanks took the series and Amy cleared us for departure.
*it does not escape me that this visit to Minnesota is in May and not January...
No comments:
Post a Comment