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Published: August 4th 2008
Mississippi
The view from the Guthrie terrace of the river flowing through Minneapolis.Amongst other things the solemn promise of 80 degree sunshine and cloudless skies every day lured me out to Minneapolis to visit Sky, a friend met travelling back in Santiago. Unfortunately, (especially given my frailties and love of hot weather) I arrived during the middle of an unusually cold snap with temperatures virtually identical to those I had left behind in England!
If the weather wasn't quite what I was hoping for the rest of the holiday certainly was! I found it a fantastic experience to be visiting a "real" part of the USA, rather than the frequently touristed areas of Florida or San Francisco that I had been to before. I was looking forward to finding out what America is really like for twenty-somethings, rather than relying on half-baked cliches from the latest teen movie!
No sooner was I off the plane on Friday evening then Sky and I were heading to a house-warming yard party and BBQ. However, there wasn't the American Pie style "keg-on-the-porch" or plastic red pint glasses and I didn't know whether I was pleased or disappointed! What I wasn't disappointed by was my introduction to the fantastic "sport" of beer-pong! Played in pairs
on a specially designed narrow table, you arrange 10 plastic pint glasses in a pyramid at each end and each glass is filled with an inch or so of beer. Each team then throws a ping-pong ball per person at the opponent's glasses aiming to get the ball in and make the other person drink the beer inside. The cup is then removed and play goes on, with a few extra rules and special events, but basically first one to get rid of all their opponent's cups is the winner. Obviously, the action gets louder, rowdier and much less accurate the longer the night goes on and the more games you play!
Minnesota is known as the state of 10,000 lakes, and the "done-thing" on summer weekends is to head up to the family cabin on the lake to enjoy the (unfortunately very elusive) Sun. This meant that on Saturday morning Sky and I loaded up the faithful Ford Festiva (like a mid-eighties version of a Fiesta) and headed up to her friends the Erickson's cabin for the Labor day weekend. Even though the weather wasn't the greatest, there were about 12 of us there and we had a
great time BBQing, playing games and obviously heading out on the lake for some boating and sunset booze cruises. It was a great privilege to be able to join the guys and enjoy some time on and around the lake, it was something that was so natural to the kids of Minnesota but was something that I'll probably not get the chance to do again.
Minnesota is a state of 5 million people, but over 3 million of those live in the Minneapolis/St Paul conurbation leaving less than 2 million to spread themselves across an area almost the size of the UK. That meant that as soon as we left the city we were travelling through proper small town America which was a novel and interesting experience.
Back in Minneapolis after the long weekend, we got to start experiencing the city itself. Being guided by a local was a massive bonus as we were able the head out to some of the best places to eat, as well as the various nights out in the student bars of Dinkytown where Sky is living while completing her Masters, which including a special Beer-pong night at an Irish pub of
Metrodome
Amazing indoor stadium - home of the Twins and the Vikings. all places!
The meals we went out for definitely confirmed to the stereotypes of American portion sizes! I was unable to manage more than two meals a day and if we went out for breakfast I wasn't able to eat again until dinner. Some spectacular eating was done: pancakes, giant muffins lathered in maple syrup, full American breakfasts - they all tasted absolutely amazing but definitely wouldn't have done much for either teeth or waistline so it was probably a good thing that it was only a week's worth of indulgence!
Meeting up with Sky's friends I got to chat away about common interests - football is definitely taking off in the States in a big way, and a lot of the people I met had watched the European Cup final the previous Wednesday, but the difference in cultures was always evident when every single person I met described it as the "Championship Game" and supplied such candid analysis as: "that Ronaldo, when he drove up the right-side on offense...".
During the week Sky and I were able to keep up our tradition of visiting a theme park in every place we travel to, this one being
Twins' Pitcher
I won't embarrass myself by trying to come up with a witty caption! Valley Fair, which had a great selection of roller-coasters and rides including the final one of the day which warned that we might get a "little" wet but then preceded to drench me, and only me - not Sky or the person sitting on the other side of me - from head to toe in icy cold water! I was not best pleases and I think the sound of me complaining about it in my finest English accent provided some amusement for the locals. It also meant that I had the ignominy of having to borrow a pair of socks from Sky's dad as we were heading straight to their house in St Paul for dinner after our day at the fair! Apart from that hiccup, we had a great dinner and afterwards Sky took me to visit her local pub from her youth - a beautiful bar on the lakeside, but it was here that I encountered the immovable object that is American ID policy, as that bar deemed my driving license not good enough and wanted my passport, and no matter how we pleaded they were having none of it!! So I'm told it was a stunningly beautiful
bar on the lakeside, but unfortunately I wasn't able to experience it!
Minneapolis is home to a famous theatre named the Guthrie, which has a top-floor roof terrace overlooking the Mississippi, and Sky and I managed to pick-up some tickets to watch a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was absolutely incredible. It was the play I studied at school (and tried as hard as possible to avoid!), but watching a modern version of it a decade or so later was absolutely fantastic - the costumes, sets and aerial work were all absolutely brilliant.
We also managed to take in another staple of Minneapolis culture at the Metrodome - home of the Twins baseball team. I think Sky was a little bit worried that I might find the 3 hour plus running time of the game a little difficult - but being a big fan of cricket I found that it flew by in double-quick time! It was great fun to watch as well, because - like live cricket - watching baseball mainly involves chatting away, drinking beer and eating ice cream while a sport goes on in the background! Speaking of beer, the States has a
reputation back home of producing awful watery lagers that no-one in their right mind would drink! Now that is true about the lagers produced by companies like Coors, Labatts and Budweiser, but in my time over there I discovered a fantastic trend for micro-breweries establishing themselves in local markets and competing with the big-boys. My favourite tipple was by Summit, which was brewed in St-Paul, and if you ever discover some Summit Extra Pale Ale I can wholeheartedly recommend giving it a try as it is fantastic! Back to the baseball and Sky and I headed to two games while I was in town and watched a narrow defeat as well as a convincing win for the Twins, the latter of which pleased Sky greatly!
For our final night-out Sky had been invited to the wedding of a college friend and had managed to secure a plus one, so I was able to head along as well. It was actually the first proper wedding that I had ever been to, as my lack of cousins had meant that I didn't get the usual introduction during my younger years. The service was a strict Christian marriage, which was an interesting
Wedding
Sky and I at her friend's wedding. experience, and the reception afterwards was at a great hotel in Minneapolis with everyone letting their hair down and having a booze fuelled dance around into the early hours. It was a great way to bring the curtain down on my time in Minneapolis.
Overall, it was a great experience for me to visit Minneapolis and a massive hoot as well. Post travelling I have always tried to get more "under-the-skin" of the places that I visit and it was fascinating to visit "Real America" and meet Sky's friends. My take as an outsider was that Minnesota was a very Christian, very patriotic state. I don't think I would be being too flippant if I were to say that my impression of the 3 most important things to the locals would be "My God, my country and my truck". In a broadly rural state the importance of those 3 things to the lives of everyone was massively apparent. However, when talking to any of the locals it seemed that the majority of people were pretty pessimistic about the future. Everyone had massive concerns about the state of the economy and the ability to find a decent job - this was especially crucial to Sky and her friends as many of them were coming to the end of undergraduate or masters qualifications and were not confident about finding the jobs or careers that they wanted due to conditions in the wider economy. On the day-to-day front, like back home, there were huge concerns about the rising cost of both fuel and food and how it was going to impact on everyone's lives.
Although my trip to the States was first and foremost a holiday - and an absolute blast of a holiday at that - I felt that I learnt an awful lot during the time I spent over there, and I thank Sky for inviting me over, putting me up and letting have the privilege of experiencing that.
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