Week-end Avec Maman

Earlier this summer when I found out that I would be working in Minnesota my mom decided she would use some of her air miles and join me there. We met at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport on thursday and had a fantastic weekend. It was so much nicer to have someone to tour around with and it made staying in the hotel much more like a vacation. My mom kept herself busy while I was teaching my reading classes (I think she probably saw more of Minnesota than I have in the past three weeks), and in the evenings we headed into the city.

One of the things I had on my to-see list while in Minnesota was the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden - the largest urban sculpture garden in the country. We parked above the Walker Art Center and walked down to the garden. I wish we would have had more time to tour the whole thing!

The iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenbur. I remember learning about this in my humanities classes!

We made reservations at the 508 (named so because of it's location on 1st ave) which my friend Kelsie had highly recommended to me. She and Jared ate there when they were visiting Minneapolis this past winter and she could not stop raving about the burger she had ordered. So I made a point to find that restaurant and try the burger.

The Juicy Louie, it was called, and the patty itself was stuffed with American and White Cheddar cheese and topped with thousand island dressing. Kelsie was right. It was great.

 

After sharing the Juicy Louie, we ventured down Nicollet Mall for some sight seeing. 

We decided to have a progressive dinner of sorts and stopped at a French restaurant called Vincent's for some appetizers and dessert. We elected to dine outside along the street to watch the passersby and take in the Minneapolis night. Escargot and Poutine with a sample platter of french desserts. Delicious. 

Burgundy style escargots in garlic parsley butter. Yum!

On left, vanilla ice cream with warm chocolate sauce & madeleine cookies. On right, creme Caramel, creme brulee, and pot de creme.

On Saturday I taught from 8:30am to 5:30pm, but I took a quick lunch break with mom in between classes and it was very nice to get out of the classroom and enjoy some good company. In the evening we went back into the city for a night at the theater! We saw Pride and Prejudice at the Guthrie Theater and it was very entertaining. I wasn't sure if I would like a play adaptation of P&P but I was pleasantly surprised.

The Guthrie Theater

The theater itself was amazing. I snapped a quick photo of the set before the show started and an usher promptly scolded me saying that there was to be no photography as everything was copyrighted. As the theater became more full there were people taking pictures left and right and the usher was too busy directing people to their seats to scold everyone. I wished I would have waited until then to get a better picture of the two of us there with the scenery behind. Alas, this pixelated photo from my non-smart phone will have to suffice.

The set was so cool! The whole stage could swivel around!

After the play, we ate a late dinner at an adjacent restaurant called Sea Change. I'm sure you can guess that there was sea food on the menu there. We split an appetizer of oysters (after picking one slimy oyster out of its shell and letting it slide down my throat I confirmed that it tasted too much like the ocean for my liking), potato gnocchi with crispy sweetbreads, mustard, and caramelized onion (which I much preferred to the oysters), salmon, chicken breast with bandaged cheddar and cauliflower, and a sampling of their desserts which looked very strange but tasted very good. We headed back to our hotel with full bellies and happy hearts after a lovely cultural evening well spent.

Playing it safe and ordering chicken at a sea food restaurant. At least I tried the oysters!

Sunday morning we thought we would drive north to see the head of the Mississippi River. What an amazing sight that would be, we thought! Google maps on my mom's phone directed us to Itasca State Park, in Ramsey, MN. When we got to Ramsey we could see what we thought was the Mississippi (though not the head of the river) but the final direction put us in the middle of a neighborhood where a kind stranger informed us that he had never heard of Itasca State Park. We later discovered that the state park, where the Mississippi begins) is located about 2 1/2 hours further north in Park Rapids. Not sure why google maps took us to Ramsey, but I guess it worked out for the best because there is no way I would have made it back to my teaching site in time if we had gone any further. We turned around disappointed, but the drive was not for nothing! We did discover a very cool Bruegger's Bagels along the way which had been transformed from an old fire station, and we drove all the way down Nicollet Ave and watched as the neighborhood architecture transformed from one era to another the closer we got to downtown. 

After teaching my last two classes we headed to the airport where we had a quick dinner together, then mom walked me to my gate and waved as I boarded the plane. It was really a wonderful weekend.  These will be some fun memories of being together.