Reuters has a travel guide to how to spend a weekend in Minneapolis and St. Paul. It’s supposed to be an enjoyable weekend, I think, but that’s not entirely clear. Beginning with a stop in the airport restrooms (no mention of Larry Craig) the travel guide recommends eating at generic chain restaurants, spending a Saturday… READ THE REST
I spent a four-day weekend there in the early 90s when I had a friend living there. I was utterly enthralled by the Mall of America. I went on the log ride and everything. It was like Blade Runner, except that everyone looks like barely-post-adolescent Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah.
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You have to love anything that provides so much detail with so little information content: “If you want a beer, make sure you have ID as even 30-somethings are challenged.”
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This is great. I always told my wife when we travel we’d do something magical like visit all the area hospital gift shops.
Anyway, I have trouble in Minnesota because I have a super, super wide stance. For a dude and all.
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The author’s bio-bite is:
“I am a European sports correspondent/sub editor for Reuters mainly based in London. I previously worked in Milan and Paris”
For what possible reason would an organization of Reuters’ nontrivial size and global reach choose that guy to write that article? They even have an office within spitting distance of the place. Even if that particular branch of the Thompson-Reuters empire doesn’t handle journalism, are you telling me that they couldn’t find a single underemployed English major who, say, lives or went to school in the area? Maybe the intern?
What an astoundingly bad write-up. In case the comments on the original article don’t make it clear, MPLS/STP are actually absolute gems:
- One of the most robust local/sustainable agriculture networks in the nation, with the independent cooperative/natural grocery stores (more than SF and NYC combined), restaurants, and farm markets to support it.
- Did I say restaurants? Yeah, a lot of them. Several are arguably world class. But go ahead and eat at the chain sub shop.
- Healthy local music, theater, and arts scenes. Each city even has its own top-notch symphony program (when not on strike).
- Speaking of healthy, few cities enjoy this sort of reputation for biking and other forms of outdoor activity. Also, reasonable rents, living wage programs, and genuinely pleasant people. (Not just white people, either.)
- We have two zoos! Well, okay, the zoos are kinda weak. Never mind.
I’ve only lived here for eight years, and I’ve never thought of myself as a “booster,” but I’ll boost these cities to the death! Did he seriously say, “get a corndog”?!?
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I’m guessing the author actually went there to write up some sporting event and spent a weekend doing exactly the things mentioned in the article because he just happened to stumble across them with no research while wandering about killing time. And then he decided to get another article out of all the random shit he did.
To be fair, the description of the sunset is ambiguous. He could very well be describing a situation where the setting sun is at his back, shining on the city which is visible to the East. It is a hilariously pointless article, though: “Here’s some random shit I did while waiting to see a ball game.” Uh, ok - thanks for that, I really needed to know all the minutiae of your unresearched weekend.
I thought this, too. It could just be a poorly constructed description. The stadium does play well with light, and the view of downtown MPLS is very nice. I don’t care much about baseball, but it is quite pleasant to observe the sunset reflecting off of the skyline and the outfield. And yer corndog.
It’s a beautiful skyline at night, too. I always loved driving home along 35W, where you go up a small hill and around a curve before it parallels 94 and you get a beautiful view of the nighttime skyline.
And for the Mall of America… I suppose you should go there once. And never go back.
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I went to the Mall of America once because I worked for Northwest Airlines and could fly there for practically nothing. Yes, it has an amusement park in the mall, but otherwise the shops are the same ones you find in malls everywhere, only bigger. I was not impressed.
I think I’ve been there three times. Twice to go to a movie, because depending on where you live, it’s a close-by movie theatre. So many other things to do while visitng. That stupid mall is waaaayyy at the bottom of the list.
Or his editor told him to get another article out of it. Probably after he got back.
Ugh! That’s a pretty lame review. They do mention Red’s Savoy in St. Paul however, still the best pizza in the Twin Cities.
Baseball has extra innings, not overtime. Baseball is one of the few main competitive team sports without a clock.
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This is really aggravating. Home of the Guthrie, the Walker, and the Juicy Lucy, and this clown tells people to go to Potbelly and the goddamn Mall?! I mean, he at least mentioned the Orpheum, but this is just pathetic.
For reals, peeps… Visit the Twin Cities. You won’t regret it.
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My guess is the writer is overseas and thinks that because cricket games are called “matches” they also must apply to American baseball. I’d guess India, since a that’s an up-and-coming content farm. Wherever the author is from she/he it’s clear she/he* has never set foot in the Twin Cities.
*I can only assume this is a pseudonym.
Yeah “match” outed the writer as a commonwealth chap immediately. Funny that he warned about the length of a baseball game. Don’t cricket matches potentially last days or something?
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Minnesota is also famous for music with Prince and Bob Dylan among those born here.
Haha. Dylan was not born or even raised there. Seriously, is it this easy to get a writing gig?
