My thoughts on Minneapolis - Part One. This is not a travel supplement nor does it talk about Minneapolis’ attractions.
There is really something mysterious about Minneapolis that has prompted me write a piece on it. It is one hell of an insignificant city in the northern most area of the United States with a weather pattern that strengthens the argument that the city should be a part of Siberia instead of the US.
A few days ago when I was on the phone with a Long Time Off Boat friend of mine in New York, he was a little confused - ’’Is Minneapolis a state and Minnesota a city?’’
Before you ask me that question: Let me clearly state the obvious: Minneapolis is a city and Minnesota is a state. I cannot blame you. I first thought Minnesota was a cannibal island somewhere near Amazon. Then I came here and found that any cannibal island near Amazon would be much better than this cold fish.
People living here are known for their dark humor… reminding us of one of those great characters sketched in the movie Fargo. When my manager quipped on the phone that he could ski to work everyday I thought he was joking. Poor me!
Who was it that said, ’’In India there are only two seasons.. Hot and Hotter.’’ Well, it exactly is the other way round here. In fact there is only one season. Winter. My neighbor in Edina (A small town just outside Minneapolis) was not too baffled to see a snowstorm on the 11th of April. ’’We love July… for you know.. we got Independence in July and then that’s the only month which so far has not seen any snowfall!’’
Yet another Steve from across the road says with that nice quirky smile on his face, ’’It took me a long time to find out about my colorblindness… You know, in Minneapolis there are only two colors.. Black and White.’’ On a typical winter day, you can take a picture of the city either with a Black and White film or with a Kodak color film. They both turn out to be the same.
For me it was kind of a treat to experience that low a temperature. I would run into the parking lot and try to see how many feet of snow is deposited on my car. Sometimes I would find ice columns hanging from the edges of the cars. For awhile it was fun to see my car covered fully with snow. However they didn’t state the Law of Diminishing Returns just like that! It was barely a couple of weeks before I was searching for a pen to fill up the $40 heated garage lease.
Talking of parking garages, Minneapolis does not have any parking problem. There are plenty of places to park your car… Of course, with ten thousand frozen lakes around you wouldn’t have to drive for more than a couple of yards to park your car. Steve however is very skeptical about this ten thousand lakes thing. ’’They don’t have ten thousand lakes here. They counted even the puddles as lakes and came up with that ten thousand which is of course a figure of speech.’’ I believe so too… because there are lakes here which hold exactly two bucketsful of water.
The downtown is the smallest I have seen in the US so far. There are exactly four tall buildings and it is kinda funny to see people standing on the shore of yet another lake looking at the downtown and remarking how beautiful a skyline Minneapolis has.
For a die hard 49ER fan like me, the city had nothing interesting to offer. There were times when I just drove on the interstate like crazy to get away from the No Man’s Land. However the next human habitat is around 250 miles away. The very thought of living in this isolated snow desert had scared the living daylights out of me initially but now I am beginning to actually like the city. So what if has no 49ER or Pacific Bell stadium? It has snow… a whole lot of it and I think I would try being a nice Penguin for the time being.
As the Kelvinator Penguin would say - ’’It’s the coolest one!’’
Part Deux to follow: Minneapolis: The Sixty Day Summer.