Minnesota (Part 1)

Vacation

Jeff and I took our first vacation since February 2020, when we went to Cancun. That seems so long ago…

We hadn’t left the state since due to COVID and we didn’t want to fly anywhere just yet. We figured a road trip would be best.

Minnesota

Anyways, we decided to go take a road trip to Minnesota to visit my relatives in the Minneapolis area. Neither of us had ever actually spent any time in the Twin Cities, so we decided to stay downtown for a few days and have a day of visiting family over the weekend.

I spoke with my cousin about a good time to come. She informed me they would be having a joint birthday party on August 8th for her son and her husband. We decided that would be a good time to come so we could see everyone and not ask people to go out of their way just to see us.

The Drive

I drove for about an hour and 1/2, fully expecting to drive more, but Jeff took over and drove the rest of the way. Even though he is used to doing most of the driving, he doesn’t like it. But, I usually get tired when I drive and end up napping a lot.

Crossing the Mississippi River into Minnesota

We went straight to our hotel, the Millennium Minneapolis, in, you guessed it…Minneapolis. We did a decent amount of arguing as we usually do when driving and parking in cities. It brings out the worst in both of us.

Millennium Hotel

When we entered the lobby of our hotel, there was a long line of people. We stood in the line for a bit thinking it was the line to check-in.

Nope.

It was a line for the elevator. Many of the people were dressed in cosplay because there was a comic convention in the Hyatt Hotel across the street.

Once we realized we could walk around them to check in, things went quickly. I was awkward as usual after a long car ride, arguing with Jeff, and being flustered by the line confusion.

Once we got up to our room, we just relaxed for a while and I researched where we could go to eat for dinner.

The Newsroom

We ended up walking a few blocks to The News Room. It had burgers and food that Jeff would like and it didn’t look too pricey. I also wanted to see their newspaper theme.

First Meal in Minneapolis at The News Room

I made reservations online, but we still had to wait to be seated and we were warned that the kitchen was behind due to lack of staff and it would take about 45 minutes to get our food once we ordered.

Once we were seated, we had to wait another 10-15 minutes for our server to come around. I was getting pissed. I was hungry and I wanted to get our order in! The server finally came around and apologized. I forgave him internally because I had seen him rushing around before he came up to us, so it wasn’t his fault.

Watermelon Collins

We ordered our meals, plus an appetizer. I ordered a drink, which I don’t usually do. I figured if we were gonna have a long wait, I may as well have a cocktail. I ordered a Watermelon Collins. I do not recommend it to people that don’t enjoy the taste of alcohol. It was STRONG. I had to make Jeff drink most of it and I still got a buzz. When we got the bill, we also learned it was EXPENSIVE. Won’t do that again…

Edmund Hillary

The restaurant was newspaper-themed, which was cool. We ended up being seated at a booth that featured a blown-up article about Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Mount Everest. He was the first man to conquer it! It was obviously cool to be seated there since we sort of share a name. I explained that my parents had named one of our past cats (mother to our cat Milo) Tenzing. They named her (they thought the cat was a he at first) Tenzing in honor of Norgay Tenzing, who was Hillary’s Sherpa guide up Mount Everest.

I hated the name, but they thought it was so cool to have a Hil(l)ary and a Tenzing. I rarely called her by her name.

Article about Sir Edmund Hillary & Tenzing

After dinner, we went back to our hotel room and relaxed until we fell asleep. We really know how to party!