Slice of Life - Minneapolis

The Slice of Life Challenge was created by the people over at the blog Two Writing Teachers. The challenge is to write about some part of your day and share it each Tuesday then give feedback to at least three other bloggers.

My exchange student and I packed a lot of stuff into our Sunday. We got up and left the house around 8:00. We made it to St. Paul around 11:00. Our first stop was the Hmong Village Market. I bought an outfit, a bracelet, and a ball (the ones used for ball toss at New Year's). There is always so much to see there. I was disappointed that the bookstore Hmong ABC wasn't open yet. I always stop in there, but I knew we would visit at least one more bookstore that day, so we headed out to our next destination: The Mall of America.

We had a fun time exploring the mall. I had no idea that one time around the mall was a little over half of a mile, but that is what we learned on the Internet. I soon got a text from a loved one asking if I knew that the mall was under a high security alert. Ugh. We stayed anyway. The threat of terrorism hung over my head a bit, but I figured it was probably more likely that we would have a traffic accident on the way home. 

We also went to a waterfall to have a bit of a winter adventure. We had to hop across to get underneath the icicles, but it was cool to hear the water behind the ice. It was gurgling back behind me. There was steam and warm air in that cave. That actually felt wonderful since the high that day was -2 and the wind was blowing.

Our next stop was the Cowles Conservatory in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Due to the frigid temps, we skedaddled into the conservatory and looked at the Spoonbridge and Cherry from the toasty warm entry way. The frost designs on the windows were swirly and amazing. Walking among the plants with the snow and ice outside made me feel like we were getting away with something.

Our final stop was Birchbark Books. The owner, Louise Erdrich, was there to do a reading. They were having an open house so there were refreshments. I bought a nice pile of books and even read a few. After she read a bit, we were running out of steam and needed to head home.

I'm glad we got to experience so many wonderful things together. I was also quite happy to get home  and sink into a chair.