We had big plans to see the sights, catch some shows and try exciting foods. As you see from the photo above, we tried falafel for the first time. This was actually the last day of our trip, we stopped for lunch at "Falafel King" and had gyros, falafel, olives, hummus and pita-yum yum yum!!! I didn't expect to enjoy falafel, but what's not to love about fried...humus?? I wouldn't want it everyday, but Aaron and I could eat gyros everyday, they are one of our favorites!!!
Of course we checked out the MN State Fair. Our culinary experience there was probably not the typical state fair experience but it was great! We got lunch at Giggles which had been featured on The View in a segment about State Fair food the week before our trip. They had "Salad on a Stick" (pictured above) with skewers of grape tomatoes and mozzarella over arugula and cold Minnesota Wild Rice Salad topped with balsamic vinaigrette. It was AMAZING!!! I am not one for funky salads or mystery looking food but this was the most pleasant surprise! It looked and tasted like something from a nice sit down restaurant and had so many great textures and flavors. Future-fair-goers: Don't Miss This One!
In addition to the yummy salad, we also ordered a foot long walleye sandwich from Giggles as well. We wouldn't have been happy with your average McFish type sandwich, but this was no crappy fast food sandwich! It was perfect-no too fishy, very tender and it had a nice topping of delicious tomatoes, lettuce and tartar sauce. As much as I LOVE fish, I have always hated tartar sauce, but theirs must be a special recipe because it was fantastic. We split the sandwich and the salad and that was our lunch (it was the perfect size lunch!) for $13.00-and we didn't feel like crap!
Another highpoint of any Fair is people watching. Doesn't this look like a sea of people? It was wild!
There are a lot of mullets, unflattering tube tops and sandals with socks in this group. Awesome.
THIS was too good to be true.
Note to self: a "cat hat" would be the perfect Christmas gift for Mark Wilmes.
Aaron spotted this! His people watching skills are superb!
Hehehe we had a nice long giggle over 2 cops ordering mini donuts.
To be honest, the State Fair was not really our cup of tea so we busted outta there and decided to do a little exploring around the neighborhood we were staying in, which is referred to as "Uptown." We did some fun shopping and then decided to grab a late afternoon beer. There was this neat looking bar (the whole roof was a patio surrounded by plexi glass) called Stella's Fish Shop, and like I said we LOVE seafood.
Well when we sat down it was happy hour, so 2 for 1 beers could keep up at a table for a while! On top of that they had their happy hour appetizer menu which featured all their $10-15 appetizers for $5, so we decided to have an early supper and try several different things. It was delicious!!! We had champagne mussels, hot crab and artichoke dip, shrimp, ahi tuna crisps, shrimp and Aaron even had me try an oyster...not too bad, but not my favorite. It was all delicious, especially the dip!
That night we had tickets for Stevie Ray's Comedy Cabaret at Chanhassen, and we had salads, an appetizer, beer and lots of good laughs! Their food was not great, so we were glad we had an early bite at Stella's.
We started our Sunday at the Mall of America and walked the entirety of the 4 floors. We had lunch at Hooters, so no special cullinary experience there but still very good. We also went to the Sea Life Aquarium in the MOA, which in my opinion, was a waste of $40. It's not very big, it's very expensive for what's there and there are soo many children there and people congesting the larger aquariums and pushing people around that you can't really enjoy the fish. Probably very enjoyable on a slow day, but still too expensive in my opinion.
Once we finished the MOA, we decided to check out IKEA. We have always enjoyed paging through the IKEA catalogs, because their storage ideas are so creative! I don't know if I would buy too much there, but the showroom was very neat to walk through. They have examples of storage ideas for apartments that are like 250 sq ft, 500 sq ft and 100 sq ft. I love the idea of making the most out of a small space. :) We also had to sample the Swedish Meatballs in the IKEA cafeteria that we had heard people ranting and raving over, and they were surprisingly good! Meatballs kinda weird me out, but these were good (no big onions!) and you can buy them frozen, too.
Once we finished at IKEA, we visited Aaron's sister Hannah and her boyfriend Mark and saw their apartment in Bloomington and got back to the apartment just in time to pass out! We were exhausted!
Aaron navigated our whole trip using Google Navigation, and it worked perfectly! It really runs your battery down, so if you would plan to use it be sure to have a car charger. I'm not sure how it would work in an area like Brookings, but in Minneapolis we would look up the address of our apartment and it would show up a 360 degree image of the neighborhood including our front door.
On Labor Day we went to the Science Museum and saw the King Tut exhibit. It's a great museum, probably best for elementary aged children as it has many hands on activities. Then we headed to the Como Zoo (which is free, but they suggest a $2 donation...we tried to do some activities that were a little cheaper!)
AAAAHHHH after reviewing my blog I realized half of it was DELETED!!!!! FML!!! I am blaming technology for this one, also. This blog was seriously like twice as long so maybe I am making them too big? Any ideas? So, here is a pile of pictures and the Cliff Notes version of the last few days of our getaway.
Just FYI since this ended so abruptly, we also went to the Como Zoo and saw Polar bears, primates and African animals, the Minneapolis Art Museum and saw a few Picassos, Monets and a VanGogh (both activities only require a donation.) We hit up Hairspray at Chanhassen (Tracy was an understaudy. Horrible.) And we popped back into Stella's and had the best clam chowder and toasted gorgonzola bread. If you are ever in the area, check it out!
At one point Kim Kardashian was at a club called Fusion about 2 blocks away from our apartment (uh, where we were probably sleeping at the time) and I think that the presence, however small, of a Kardashian are really what it takes to make an average anniversary trip into a sexy anniversary trip. Yes, I am sure of this.
Heheheheee so I am too lazy to REupload the gorgeous pictures of the zoo, but maybe someday. :) What's your favorite getaway spot? What do you like to do in Minneapolis?
Noelle
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