cathyr19355 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cathyr19355) wrote2005-10-08 12:53 am
cathyr19355) wrote2005-10-08 12:53 am
Entry tags:
If it’s Wednesday, it must be St. Paul....
I started writing this post in the Minneapolis airport during what was my second trip to the Twin Cities in as many weeks this August. Since I’m away from home again, and have nothing better to do at the moment, this seems like a good time to post it, formless though it is.
For the second time in two weeks, I have had to go to Minnesota alone on business. The Twin Cities, to be exact. This time, I got to spend two glorious days in St. Paul, spending two 8-hour days sitting in a deposition, listening to my colleagues bore an insurance professional to tears with questions whose significance he doesn’t have the background information to appreciate, while trying to ascertain whether my responsibility to my client requires me to chime in. (For the most part, it didn’t). So while killing time in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport waiting to fly home, I starting setting forth my random impressions of the city.
I grew up near the East Coast, and my idea of what a “city” should be was molded by Philadelphia and New York. As a result, the cities of the American Midwest always look desolate and semi-abandoned to me, and St. Paul is no exception. Though it’s fairly small as cities go, St. Paul has the wide streets and stretched-out, huge buildings of the typical Midwestern city. Even though this is a town where people are not afraid to strike up real conversations with total strangers, I still cannot feel quite at home here. The architecture in downtown St. Paul is an odd mix of shiny new office buildings, marvelously preserved historic buildings from the Edwardian era (the place where the deposition is to be held is one of these), and dreary storefronts that are vacant or contain low-overhead businesses that look likely to close for good any second. Interestingly, one of these storefronts is a gaming/comics store that appears to have a significant clientele and a decent selection of games and gaming impedimenta. They also sell some novels, and I bought a book I’ve been missing from a fantasy series I’m following to read over dinner and on the plane home.
Other than the number of empty or underused properties, the other impression I get is that there are plenty of fun things to do in this town, once you know where to find them. The conservatory of the St. Paul Symphony is about 5 blocks from my hotel, and I’ve been told it’s first-rate. There are at least 5 decent restaurants and a couple of fast food places near my hotel. A nearby theatre advertises a show called “Minnesota—It’s Not Just for Lutherans Anymore!”
Reading material in hand, I treat myself to a meal at the most expensive restaurant within walking distance of my hotel; a Moroccan-fusion restaurant called Fhima. I order a lamb tagine, which is a kind of lamb stew with beans. It is very good, and while I’m enjoying it a waitress comes over to the table next to mine and heats a crème brulee with a kind of little branding iron, right there in the middle of the restaurant, sending clouds of caramel-sweet steam in my direction.
And that dinner was the high point of my trip. The next day after the deposition I was covering was over, I grabbed a cab back to the airport with a young woman who was also traveling on business and who cheerfully paid the cab driver so she could put the bill on her expense account. My plane flew in to Philadelphia International Airport with barely enough time to allow me to grab a cab to the train station and catch the last train of the night back to Malvern.
Yes, I know that there are other attractions in the vicinity of the Twin Cities—Fort Snelling, the Mall of America—and maybe I’ll get to visit them sometime. But however pleasant a place Minneapolis/St. Paul is to visit, I can’t imagine ever getting used to living there.
For the second time in two weeks, I have had to go to Minnesota alone on business. The Twin Cities, to be exact. This time, I got to spend two glorious days in St. Paul, spending two 8-hour days sitting in a deposition, listening to my colleagues bore an insurance professional to tears with questions whose significance he doesn’t have the background information to appreciate, while trying to ascertain whether my responsibility to my client requires me to chime in. (For the most part, it didn’t). So while killing time in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport waiting to fly home, I starting setting forth my random impressions of the city.
I grew up near the East Coast, and my idea of what a “city” should be was molded by Philadelphia and New York. As a result, the cities of the American Midwest always look desolate and semi-abandoned to me, and St. Paul is no exception. Though it’s fairly small as cities go, St. Paul has the wide streets and stretched-out, huge buildings of the typical Midwestern city. Even though this is a town where people are not afraid to strike up real conversations with total strangers, I still cannot feel quite at home here. The architecture in downtown St. Paul is an odd mix of shiny new office buildings, marvelously preserved historic buildings from the Edwardian era (the place where the deposition is to be held is one of these), and dreary storefronts that are vacant or contain low-overhead businesses that look likely to close for good any second. Interestingly, one of these storefronts is a gaming/comics store that appears to have a significant clientele and a decent selection of games and gaming impedimenta. They also sell some novels, and I bought a book I’ve been missing from a fantasy series I’m following to read over dinner and on the plane home.
Other than the number of empty or underused properties, the other impression I get is that there are plenty of fun things to do in this town, once you know where to find them. The conservatory of the St. Paul Symphony is about 5 blocks from my hotel, and I’ve been told it’s first-rate. There are at least 5 decent restaurants and a couple of fast food places near my hotel. A nearby theatre advertises a show called “Minnesota—It’s Not Just for Lutherans Anymore!”
Reading material in hand, I treat myself to a meal at the most expensive restaurant within walking distance of my hotel; a Moroccan-fusion restaurant called Fhima. I order a lamb tagine, which is a kind of lamb stew with beans. It is very good, and while I’m enjoying it a waitress comes over to the table next to mine and heats a crème brulee with a kind of little branding iron, right there in the middle of the restaurant, sending clouds of caramel-sweet steam in my direction.
And that dinner was the high point of my trip. The next day after the deposition I was covering was over, I grabbed a cab back to the airport with a young woman who was also traveling on business and who cheerfully paid the cab driver so she could put the bill on her expense account. My plane flew in to Philadelphia International Airport with barely enough time to allow me to grab a cab to the train station and catch the last train of the night back to Malvern.
Yes, I know that there are other attractions in the vicinity of the Twin Cities—Fort Snelling, the Mall of America—and maybe I’ll get to visit them sometime. But however pleasant a place Minneapolis/St. Paul is to visit, I can’t imagine ever getting used to living there.
no subject
It seems like you came here to see our internet access and eat barbecue.
Rob
no subject
As Eric said tonight, it's the parallel play syndrome at work. :-)
no subject
no subject
As for the "best steakhouse on the planet," it would be wasted on me as I'm not that fond of steak--but I appreciate the thought.