On the drive, Ashley remembered that her friend from college, Inez, grew up in Minneapolis and might have some suggestions for things to do. Shortly after sending an email, Ashley got a very thorough and well-organized email from her which had sections for food, art, activities etc. There were so many useful hyperlinks! If we had known that before we planned our trip, we may have decided to spend more time in the twin cities. Unfortunately, we only had about 18 hours to spend there, and needed to sleep for much of that.
We pulled in to St. Paul around 8:30 Wednesday night and found the closest Punch Pizza, a Napolitano pizza local chain, something suggested by Inez. This food experience was much better than lunch. They make their own dough, roll each pizza out by hand - top them (lightly) with fresh, high quality ingredients - san marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella etc. They bake the individual pies in a wood burning oven that is 800 degrees for 90 seconds and poof. Though similar in spirit, Punch Pizzas are very different from those at Paolina’s Way. We both would rather eat at PW but this got the job done well. Heading to the hotel with lots of left overs, we were happy and tired.
We had Pricelined a two start hotel in Minneapolis for $30. We got an Extended Stay America. I have had some really good experiences at Extended Stay Americas when staying there for ultimate tournaments, but this one kinda sucked. It was in a industrial park in the North-West corner of Minneapolis. You can’t hold that against it, but it meant another half hour drive. It advertised WiFi, but cost $4.99. We bought it so we could blog, and watch some Hulu. We checked in, and went to our room, but the key didn’t work. Ashley went back down and told person at the front desk. She changed our room after trying the key herself. Again, none of this is that bad, and it could happen anywhere, but after a long day it was frustrating. The real problems happened when we crawled into bed. First we tried to watch Parenthood on Hulu. It was impossible. The connection was so slow that we had to wait 5 minutes to watch two or three minutes of the show. 45 minutes later, after watching about 15 minutes of the show, we quit. I rolled over and felt one of those single-use plastic floss/toothpic things on the bed under the sheet. To tired to make a fuss, I just pushed it off the side of the mattress and went to sleep.
We did our 30 minute run the next morning, through the industrial park. It was cold, but we both ran pretty fast, which lifted our spirits.
I mentioned the slow internet to the woman at the front desk as we checked out, and she offered to refund it. I didn’t mention the flosser. Next stop was the Mall of America. It was very nice, for a mall. There is a theme park in the middle (roller coasters, log flume, etc.). There was a lot of natural light -- much of the roof was translucent glass. The couches were very upscale, and looked very comfortable. All the stores were the same you see everywhere else except that there was a Columbia Brand store, apparently one of seven or so in the country, where we went searching for warm clothes for the upcoming national parks. We found a really friendly ‘technician’ who helped me pick out snow/ski pants.
After looking around a little more, we went to REI and got a stove, running gloves, and running Gu. We also became REI members (they are America’s largest Consumer Co-op, we now get about 10% back for any purchase we make at REI!) The people there we so awkward. It seemed like we were the first people they had spoken to since being alone in the woods for years. They knew a lot about outdoor wear, so we might have been.
Next was off to the Minneapolis farm market, open seven days a week, but no hours on the website. No one was there. We found another farm market, but it had very little from local farms, lots of oranges, bananas, grapes, etc. that they just happened to sell there. Again, we left empty handed, and decided to go to a vietnamese area that Inez suggested. Ashley found a vietnamese restaurant at the end of Nicolette street on the south side of the city (I think). We were glad about the suggestion because without it we never would have gone to the end of this street or gone into the building but it was worth it!
It was incredible. We got vegetarian spring rolls and two orders of number 46, a rice noodle dish with lots of vegetables, tofu, fake duck (we think made out of seitan), and fish sauce. It was a nice change of pace from what we had been having, and it was delicious. I wish we could eat like that more often on the trip. Possibly the best part is that it only cost us $20.
On the way out of town we saw a natural food Co-op called The Wedge and took the opportunity to stock up on yogurt, peanut butter, carrots, apples, bananas, dry pasta, tortilla chips and some canned beans. It was a bunch of money to spend at once, but I don’t think we will have to buy food for a few days.
We finally left Minneapolis at 4 and started our 7 hour drive to Bismarck. I entertained Ashley while she was driving by having a 45 minute conversation with the priceline call center in The Philippines about their website not working. Both people that I spoke with on the phone had obviously never used the website, and were just reading scripts about what the problem must be. Unfortunately, the problem I was describing was different than the problem they were explaining how to fix. I tried every way I could to speak with a supervisor, anyone, that could help me solve the problem, but I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone above her. We were left with a bunch of bad (or expensive) options on hotwire, so Ashley tried priceline again -- The problem had been solved. I’m sure that its only a coincidence, but Ashley thinks that someone told a tech guy to fix the site. We ended up staying in a nice hotel for more money than we wanted to, but were willing to do that instead of the budget inn express.
A few hours before pulling into Bismarck, we stopped at a rest-area and ate the left over vietnamese food in the car. We had a great time doing it.
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