Recap! Which should be strange since Kelly mentioned me doing one of these and now I know I'm being watched, so to speak.
My journey up north started the night before. I got off work, made it back to my apartment with enough time to shower and "pack," then head to the train that was going to get me to the bus that was taking me to the gathering. It felt like a longer, less sleep-filled night than it probably was, due to both the bus' A/C blasting the coldest air known to man and everyone curling up the best they could, with the exception of my bus neighbor, who was inching awfully close to my personal space.
But I eventually make it to the city, surprisingly on time, saw that I was in another country apparently
and decided I should head straight to the market.
See that 1.7 mile walk I took to get there? Apparently it was only .2 miles away and I could have just gone from the starting point at 3rd St and Chicago Ave to the last point on 2nd St. Oops? Oh well, I guess. Because I saw Stuff.
Shannon called me shortly after I'd been wandering for a bit and after some "Where are you?"s were exchanged, we finally found each other (Chris was there, as well, since he had picked her up at the Mall of America). But all that time on the bus and I had to use the little girl's room, so we wandered around in search of restrooms.
Chris found this gem:
Seriously, best-smelling, cleanest, most pleasant port-a-potty ever to exist.
Then, back to the river for some pictures.
And back to the Farmer's Market to await Kelly's arrival.
Shannon and I discussed, among other things, Riverdancing (there was a woman playing a lovely set of jigs on her violin a few feet from us) while Chris chose to go the eat without everyone route while Kelly was on her way. Then Kelly joined us and we were off!
About 2 minutes later, we had covered the entirety of the market. But that was okay because we found these guys who had these things you all may have heard about, crepes:
After all that eating, we decided to head over to the sculpture park at Walker Art something or other. We hopped in Chris' vehicle and this is where the real adventuring began. I will say this, he may not be the safest driver or the best at navigating but what he lacks in those areas he makes up for in pure clean "Am I or am I not going to die?" fun.
Once again I'm the shortest.
I found what I was looking for! Learned it was a fountain.
Then we were off to the zoo. Como, I believe. Kelly missed most of what we saw, since she drove over separately and we were starting to wonder if we scared her off.
Saw some pretties.
Then some Chrises.
Lost a full bar (battery cell) on my camera trying to take a picture of Nemo:
Saw some Freds:
And some Kirstens:
Cuteness:
Sadness (all his monkey friends were sleeping in pairs):
We finished looking at the primates exhibits and circled back. While checking one last time on my sad little friend, we discovered he was no longer sad. At least, not sad enough to stop him from having some happy fun alone time. Oh, how funny monkey masturbation was to the majority of us who saw it.
Sinners that we were for witnessing one of God's creatures feeling good, we headed to a Cathedral.
Noticing a pretty, official looking building off to the [insert cardinal direction here], I asked if we could go.
It was in that building, state capital, that I figured out I was hungry. Seems everyone was. Mighty Ducks!
This woman frightened me:
Waiting for foodstuffs.
Got some tasty drinks:
And then there was food!
It was after this that we parted ways with Kelly. While Shannon and I were off taking pictures, Chris seemed to have disappeared and we wondered if he was ditching us, too, since he gave no warning he was moving his car. But he called to say he was closeby.
We tried to go to the Science Museum but [insert more fun Chris driving here] having been unable to find the parking garage at first, then circling back and losing the Science Museum despite having two smart phones, we decided to go to the Mall of America instead. Which we walked every single floor of before deciding to play mini-golf.
[insert Chris' pictures here...I didn't get any because I was lazy/tired at this point and saw the other two were]
After we realized I was almost the next Tiger Woods, we went to Ikea and tried every last couch and seat they had. Clearly that was hard work AND we wanted to properly celebrate Steph's birthday, so we stopped off for some cake:
From there, it was time for me to head back to downtown Minneapolis to meet other folks, so we drove back, took some pictures and said our goodbyes.
I was pretty bummed I had agreed to meet others because I was having a great time pestering Chris and getting out some of my BFFestedness out with Shannon but I had a pretty good time at dinner (minus the stomach cramping from trying to eat way too much in one day).
After dinner, hung out on a rooftop waiting for the bus ride back.
I eventually hopped on the bus, talked to zero for about half an hour, then crashed very hard. Made it back here at 7:25, rode the CTA to the end of the line, found WalMart (and a KMart!), picked up my picture frames I ordered, and walked back. ~4.7 miles. I am darker today than I was Friday. And still tired.
But so worth it. :)
That seems rather soon! That's a good thing though, not a bad thing. The earlier in the semester, the better, for me, but as of now I can probably make any weekend work. Maybe weekdays too, but I haven't gotten my class schedule yet, and it seems like weekends are better for both Elf and Nomi.
