Minneapolis and Minnehaha

Minneapolis.

The country road turns to urban sprawl, turns to multi-lane highways, turns to spaghetti junctions, and the city is there on the skyline. Another city I’ve always dreamt to visit. Suddenly, here I am.

Well, not exactly. We place ourselves in Roseville, which is handily close to both the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul.

We’re at another Country Inn & Suites by Carlson with a beaut big sky view out the window, good pool, beaut beds, spotless rooms, helpful staff and decent brekkies. Love this chain.

We have a few days here.

First up, well, it’s the Mall of America, of course.

It’s the biggest mall in the USA. Just try to keep me away.

Bruce understands that this is a de rigeur retail fix, a proper bragging rights retail fix... He loathes shopping but he is fascinated by the logistics of mega creations. He's already doing the sums when we swing past the No Guns signs. Phew. They're a comfort.

The reality of the place leaves one utterly stupefied. Add gob-smacked, rubber-necked, agog, awe-struck and incredulous.

There is an entire amusement park complete with roller coasters, zip-liners, dodgem cars, ferris wheel, spinning arm things….

Then there are the giant Lego and giant Crayola stores.

It is very kid-oriented - as is America generally as I keep observing.

We seek out some easy food court food, thanks to my old fav, Panda Express, and we go mall walking. Now this Mall is on four or five levels. It is up and up and down and down while it is also long and broad. So one can walk a long way. And we did. The pedometers on our phones showed a 10km mall walk.

Such good exercise sets us up well for dinner close to our digs. Joe’s Crab House. A huge pot of crab legs and a whole Maine lobster. Oh, now I know I am in America.

Of course, vital for a theatre person in Minneapolis is a drop in on the Guthrie Theatre, famously founded by Tyrone Guthrie to celebrate repertory theatre.

Ye Goddesses, I had no idea it was such a monumental great monolith of a black, shiny, ritzy multi-storey edifice. One would never take it for a theatre. But there’s a giant black and white photograph of Guthrie on the

front of the Guthrie, so it is unmistakable.

There is no theatre tour available until we have left town and the show I’d like to see, Disgraceful, does not open until we are gone. South Pacific is on, but I saw a version too recently. I am disinclined to ring the theatre and pull professional rank. I prefer just to go as an everyday tourist.

I am pleasantly received by the concierge and given lots of directions. Immediately, I am uncomfortable. That narrow escalator is so steep and so high. Too steep. Too high. I grit my teeth and get on. Upstairs are the auditorium entrances and assorted bars and cafe and lots of foyesr in various directions. We check them all out and then follow instructions and take the lift

to the 9th floor and view the river from the vertiginous lookout with its glass floor, upon which I will not tread. Whose dumb idea was this? I am really, really uncomfortable now. I hate heights.

I am pretty much a down-to-earth theatre stalls theatre person. The old critics’ seats, row G or H. That’s where I’ve spent much of my life. Not on lifts and escalators and glass-bottomed foyers in theatres.

I run into a young tech called P.J. who is working on Disgraced. They are having a tech run. He tries to smuggle me into the auditorium but finds he can’t get in himself. Oops. We chat. He raves about the production of South Pacific and is proud about how they have toned down the script’s racist undertones.

I am edgy. I want to be on the ground.

When I get there, the theatre gift

shop is closed. Goddammit.

We walk on through the historic flour mill district of Minneapolis and uptown. It is a long hike and the Nicolet Mall which we planned to stroll, is under massive renovation. It is a building site for a full mile. It is a noisy filthy, ugly shambles. We sidestep it and walk a couple of skywalks - upstairs bridges which connect the city buildings so the people can move around in the hard and nasty winters they get here. We come upon a Panera Bread and stop for salad, then return to the mall to find The News Room.

It is a restaurant famous for its newspaper theme. Oh, my. It is very theme. You never saw such big news pages as

they have on the walls or such immense and hefty rolled newspapers as they have hanging from the ceiling.

The bar is in the shape of a ship for no associated reason I could fathom. But newspapers rule from end to end. Most fascinatingly, in the path to the rest rooms. There is a corridor of giant news pages which branches into two feeding towards the women’s and the men’s rooms. The really odd thing is that the washrooms of the men’s and the women’s are separated by half-silvered mirrors so, while washing hands at the sink, one can see through the mirror to the ghostly form of a man washing

his hands in the men’s room.

Why they chose to do this, heaven knows.

It is fun. It is weird.

I send Bruce in and try to take a photo of us both - but, while you can see the tap through the mirror, the camera can’t pick up the face on the other side of the mirror.

We order coffee and dessert at the News Room. Dessert is root beer cookies with vanilla bean ice cream. There is quite a wait for this confection and we wonder what the…

And then it comes, hot and fresh from the oven. Root beer has a sarsaparilla flavour. This combination of ice cream and cookie is like a hot and cold root beer float. It is orgasmic. I sit there swooning, just swooning… I don’t know when in my life I have ever tasted anything so exquisite.

I meander out into Minneapolis in some sort of a reverie. It takes hours to recover. Maybe I am still high. Oh, wow.

Next day we are booked for a tour.

Seeing a MetroConnections brochure

in our hotel lobby had prompted us to the idea of getting informative commentary and covering a whole lot of territory without the car. We are picked up at the Mall of America. Just 15 of us with driver, Tom, and guide Judy.

Oddly, we don’t go where we think we are going. Our tour has been amended because of the construction shambles in Minneapolis. So first up we go to a peace park and contemplate roses and origami. It is a pleasant park. Among our number is a solo traveller, a Chilean woman called Lorena. Clearly, she needs companions. I chum up with her. Language is an issue but instinctively we seem to like each other.

Judy gives her commentary standing at the front

of the bus facing us with a mike in one hand and the other free to grab the luggage rack if we corner or stop suddenly. Travelling backwards and talking and coping with bus movement is quite a skill. Then she reveals she’s been at it for 23 years. She’s even done tours to Australia. Not by bus, of course. She explains the origins of the names of Minnesota and Minneapolis and a broad brush of history and culture.

We drive around a lot of suburbs. It is fascinating. She points out houses of the Minneapolis rich and famous. Not that they mean much to us. But the houses are outrageous and we love it.

The bus bumps its way into the city proper with Judy berating the detours and construction which frustrates tours.

We are dropped in Nicolet Mall to find lunch. We go to Macy’s basement and have lousy Chinese before rejoining the bus.

Bloody hell. Now we’re going to the Guthrie. Been there, done that. Oh well, the gift shop surely will be open. It’s not.

We go for a walk and look at the river while the rest of the tour does the Guthrie. I tweet about the closed

gift shop. It replies that it will be open at 4pm. Madness. The place is swarming with internationals who all want to take something home from it. What’s its problem? Doesn’t it want to make money?

We drive around the staggeringly huge new sports arena which Judy explains is so controversial in the city.

Next stop, the Mississippi. We are going for a paddle boat ride.

It starts to rain. Judy says its not really rain. It is imaginary, or should be. The forecast gave a 20 per cent chance of showers. We’re snug in the bus. We care little.

The rain stops in perfect time for us to board the river boat. The paddle wheel is just for decoration, Bruce discovers. By now, we are a comfortable trio with Lorena who turns out to be a special-ed teacher and the widow of a distinguished educator and academic. She is visiting her daughter who has just produced Lorena’s first grandchild, Maya. Lorena is in love.

The Mississippi is a tough, working river. She’s running very fast and high after big rains up north. The banks are very high and steep, covered in a density of trees and creepers.

There are barges and floating cranes. There’s a tug boat. There are bridges and buoys. There's some ingenious graffiti, especially that decorating those buoys. I amused myself imagining how crazy it must have been for the artists to paint them - dead of night, wobbly boat...

The captain gives us some commentary and there is a sound track on the history of the river. We end up leaving our nice upstairs

indoor table and standing on the deck, close and personal with the brown water. We are about 90 minutes on the water and it is very relaxing, albeit the weather remains a bit dreary.

Next stop, Minnehaha Falls where there is a lovely park, a sweet statue of Hiawatha wth Minnihaha and the fabulous waterfall.

Lovely.

Back on the bus, Judy regales us with stories and amusing Minnesota trivia.

Spam, for heaven’s sake. It is a Minneapolis invention and an ever-growing market in all manner of different international flavours. Gawd.

The traffic is bad. We hit some jams.

We don’t care. Judy is in full flight.

Mars Bars are from here, too.

Judy Garland was a Minnesota girl. Judy was named after her.

Bob Dylan is a Minnesota boy. The late, lamented Prince. Peanuts cartoonist Charles Shultz. Garrison Keeler, of course.

She tells Jesse Ventura stories. He was a governor here.

Driver Tom might not be enjoying the traffic delays, but we passengers, none with a flight connection to stress the clock, are well entertained and perhaps a little sad when we reach the tour’s end back at Mall of America.