So, about a year ago, I realized Green Day was playing in Minneapolis in July. I have loved them since 8th grade. So I begged Jeremy (and it really didn't take much arm twisting), and we decided to make a weekend out of it. The only downside was that my friend Lois was leaving that week to go visit her family in California, so we wouldn't be able to meet up with her.
We drove up on a Friday afternoon because the Twins were in town, so we decided we'd go see them, too. We found a hotel right across from the Target Center, which meant the Metrodome was within walking distance.
I had been to the Twin Cities several times as a kid. My dad's best friend from the Marine Corps lives there, so we took several trips to visit. I had never thought that it was that great of a place. And when I went to visit Lois a few months before the wedding, it was January and cold, so we didn't do much exploring. I was very surprised at what it has become.
We had a decent walk down and back to the Metrodome. Not once did I feel unsafe. Downtown Minneapolis is really clean and safe. There were several cops and security patrols around. And, there were a bunch of bars and restaurants around. I was really impressed. If I were just out of college, I think it would be where I would want to move.
It was nice to go back to the Metrodome one more time to see a Twins game. It's the only ballpark that I've been to where I was on the jumbotron. Granted, I was passed out, but I was on there - mouth hanging open and everything. It was a good game, and I was very happy to find they had microbrews there. This resulted in me not realizing it was the bottoms of the 9th and that the game was over.
The next day, my dad's buddy came and got us for lunch. We got to see Dinkytown and part of the campus. We also started the search for Jeremy's hockey stick. Fun times.
We also explored some of downtown. I was a little bummed that I did not have a hat to throw next to the Mary Tyler Moore statue. Downtown is basically a shopping area with the typical shops and restaurants. But, that also meant we got to have a good choice of where to eat for the concert - and we ended up going with Hard Rock.
I should also say that our hotel was extremely fancy -- but we got an amazing deal on it. However, I also realized that Green Day had the penthouse for the night. This may have resulted in me trying to figure out how to sneak up there. But, considering that the lobby was three floors up and around a corner, I didn't think it was going to be that easy. I was a little bummed that I realized when we were packing up that there was a pillow menu. But, I did keep our Hermes soap -- even though it reeks.
Since we stayed right across the street, it was really easy to get to the concert. The amazing thing was that as we walked out of the hotel, we ran into two people I went to high school with. With all of the people that went, it was an amazing feat.
We had pretty decent seats, but that was a minor thing. The concert was absolutely amazing. They played for about 2.5 hours, and they played the old stuff and the new stuff. The kid next to me thought I was weird as I was belting out the old stuff - I shouldn't have been surprised -- it came out before he was born. I'm very glad we went. It was fabulous.
To finish out the weekend, on our way home, we stopped at the Mall of America. That wasn't too exciting. It's just a big mall. Ikea was lovely though. Des Moines needs one. We also spent quite a bit of time at Hockey Giant - a department store of hockey stuff. I was not so excited; Jeremy was like a kid in the candy store.
So, it was a good weekend. Both of us were very happy with it. It was a nice little mini-vacation.
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