So this past Halloween weekend me and Heather visited Minneapolis to hang out with the Entourage (and everyone's significant others). This is the first rendition of our semi-annual trip where it was more than the 4 of us. We all wanted to go to Minn because we knew that Jeremy was finishing up law school soon and wanted to make sure to visit while we had a chance. Plus, this was the 1st chance Heather could meet my good friends... So this is what went down:
Minneapolis Skyline at night (kind of looks like Gotham)
Sunday: Will and Ashley had an early afternoon flight this day, so we missed them on this day. So after another late start, we got up and walked to the Sculpture Garden, an area that I had been pleading to go to. This was a great decision. Lots of art pieces placed very well within a park. The most famous one is the Spoonbridge with a Cherry (see below). I took many pics at all different angles, and think this one with the Basilica in the background is the best. We spent a lot of time here, as there were interactive art pieces (including transluscent mirros, poetic benches, and a swinging platform)... We then trotted over to the Basilica to take pics of the great architecture, and a few decided to go sit in on Mass. I liked it, and we stayed about 10 minutes. ...afterwards, a good dinner at Joe's Garage.... because we missed a play at The Guthrie (dang matinee), we decided to walk the Miss River front and downtown art scene.. this was really cool and again looked like the picture at the start of this blog... but the Guthrie was awesome.
The SpoonBridge (although its hard to see how it spans the water on this pic)
Minneapolis Skyline at night (kind of looks like Gotham)Thursday: We got delayed because the airport in Minneapolis decided to shut down all but 1 of its runways... now that's got to be some bad decision-making. We were supposed to get in at midnight (due to the 2 hour timechange) and we got in at 2:30am (and so did Will & Nick). Because we all got in at the same time, we took the light rail together to downtown where Jeremy picked up up. He lives in the "Warehouse District" which is a refurbished area of town that still has a lot of character, yet is still nice. We all chitchatted until about 4am, made our inflatable beds, and called it a night.
Friday: Waking up and getting 8 people ready takes a while. We got out in the early afternoon and took a trip to the Minnapolis Institute of Art. It was quite large.... large enough to get my dogs barking! My favorite place was the Modern Art section, as well as the Sub-Saharan section (see my friend Will's blog for pics)...afterwards, we all went to 7 Sushi, a very nice restaurant where I had a delicious crabcake.. .it was so flavorful
All of the crew (starting with Jeremy on left and going clockwise: Jeremy, Justyne, Heather, Riley, Nick, Robbie, Ashley; Will is taking picture)
After dinner, we all decided to go back and get ready to go out on the town. It was Jeremy and Justyne's defacto bachelor/bachelorette party since they decided to elope. We had a good time, and again made it home quite late in the morning.
After the MoA, we all got ready to go to the Halloween Party at the Law fraternity (?, not sure that is what it is called) house. Anyways, it is the house Jeremy lived at for a few years (not like a typical fraternity). Nick and Robbie dressed as Mormon missionaries (not sure I agree with that), Jeremy was the Minnesota sleeping pilot, Will was Plaxico Burress, and I was Kanye West (Heather was Taylor Swift). Everyone looked spot on in their costumes, while I looked rather white for a rapper, so Heather at the last minute, painted my face black... this would go down as a bad decision, as I looked terrible. Luckily, Heather would end up giving me her blond wig to wear, so I then looked like what Will called "Zombie Rupaul". Nonetheless, my terrible costume turned into a memorable one. The other odd thing was that the party was completely dead when we showed up, so we were able to just make it our own, which was a good thing.... Later that night, the Entourage had a secret late night dinner, to just hang out by themselves, which the significant others would not know until this was written.
Saturday: After another late start (and some doughnuts/ cold pizza for lunch) a big group of us went to the Mall of America. I was rather quite vocal about not wanting to go, but was the only one. To me, it is just a regular mall... except imagine your local mall with the exact same layout stacked on each other 4x. Plus, it was Halloween (child trick or treaters) and a Saturday, so the whole Minnesota population was there, making it difficult to move around. Nonetheless, Jeremy and Will liked an inflatable Ice Cream Cone, which was the highlight.
After the MoA, we all got ready to go to the Halloween Party at the Law fraternity (?, not sure that is what it is called) house. Anyways, it is the house Jeremy lived at for a few years (not like a typical fraternity). Nick and Robbie dressed as Mormon missionaries (not sure I agree with that), Jeremy was the Minnesota sleeping pilot, Will was Plaxico Burress, and I was Kanye West (Heather was Taylor Swift). Everyone looked spot on in their costumes, while I looked rather white for a rapper, so Heather at the last minute, painted my face black... this would go down as a bad decision, as I looked terrible. Luckily, Heather would end up giving me her blond wig to wear, so I then looked like what Will called "Zombie Rupaul". Nonetheless, my terrible costume turned into a memorable one. The other odd thing was that the party was completely dead when we showed up, so we were able to just make it our own, which was a good thing.... Later that night, the Entourage had a secret late night dinner, to just hang out by themselves, which the significant others would not know until this was written.
Sunday: Will and Ashley had an early afternoon flight this day, so we missed them on this day. So after another late start, we got up and walked to the Sculpture Garden, an area that I had been pleading to go to. This was a great decision. Lots of art pieces placed very well within a park. The most famous one is the Spoonbridge with a Cherry (see below). I took many pics at all different angles, and think this one with the Basilica in the background is the best. We spent a lot of time here, as there were interactive art pieces (including transluscent mirros, poetic benches, and a swinging platform)... We then trotted over to the Basilica to take pics of the great architecture, and a few decided to go sit in on Mass. I liked it, and we stayed about 10 minutes. ...afterwards, a good dinner at Joe's Garage.... because we missed a play at The Guthrie (dang matinee), we decided to walk the Miss River front and downtown art scene.. this was really cool and again looked like the picture at the start of this blog... but the Guthrie was awesome. The SpoonBridge (although its hard to see how it spans the water on this pic)Monday: We woke up at 4:40am, to catch our 7 am flight... not cool, although I thought we all handled it well. More pics are to be seen once we hang out.
