Minneapolis

 
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Another wedding weekend, I've travelled to Minnesota. A first for me, never been to the state even as a layover at the airport. I'm staying at the Hotel Minneapolis, it was a bank that was in existence in the 50s now converted to a hotel. Very cool decor and architecture.

Got in super late and the valet knew who I was, I guess there aren't many people checking in at 1 am. He was nice enough to ask me if I was hungry and gave me a menu to Pizza Luce. The pizza I ordered was awesome and they don't close until 3:30 am on Fridays and Saturdays. Good deal!
Zahtar in the Life Time Fitness Club is only open to their members. It is a very interesting club and very large, any club with indoor tennis courts is huge.
After the wedding, I was invited to eat with the family for Sunday brunch. Interestingly, the restaurant was inside an athletic club. The restaurant wasn't prepared for the number of people in the group. The eggs benedict had english muffins that was so hard, that drenching in gravy would barely make a dent in softening the bread. I had Challah French Toast and it was done well. The restaurant's theme is healthy mediteranean fusion, I must presume then the potatoes I got was boiled for healthy purposes. Overall, the decor was nice but I wasn't impressed.

I didn't realize that Minnesota is home to Target and Best Buy. As I was driving around Minneapolis, I couldn't help but notice the quantity of Target stores. I visited a Best Buy store to get some camera accessories and saw almost the original Best Buy store. The store associate told me it is probably the second or third store and I am amazed at the difference between what they started at and what they are in California.

I later went to the Mall of America, the place was ginormous. The mall is rather impressive in size and number of shops are varied enough that one wouldn't be bored shopping. The amusement park was well laid out within the mall. I don't know if I could normally shop at a mall that size but it is definitely something to be seen.

I had dinner at the hotel restaurant, Max. I had the duck entree and it was very tasty. I was not expecting the leg and thigh of the duck, but it was still good. Although I'm a fan of dark meat, I prefer duck breast. Go figure...

The next day, I caught a Twins game before jumping on a plane back to LA. The Twins share a stadium with the Vikings. This is the first time I've ever been in an indoor baseball game. It was pretty interesting, I'm so used to sitting in the sun while watching the game. I almost felt like I was watching a basketball game instead of baseball. I also won a free T-shirt from one of those cannon shooters. I felt that it was an omen since I made eye contact with the mascot shooting the T-shirts despite me being probably more than 100 feet above.

All in all a very interesting firsts in this trip - 1) being in Minnesota, 2) Mall of America, 3) indoor sports stadium, and 4) enjoying my Hyundai Elantra rental. I didn't have much expectation but opted for the car once I saw that I was going to be given a gold Ford Focus. The USB port was the deciding factor in asking the rental company to give me the Elantra instead of the Focus. Surprisingly, the car came with a sunroof and had pretty good mileage (about 25ish mpg city/highway driving combined). If you're looking for a reasonable car with decent handling/driving, I would recommend the Elantra. :O

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