My family and I started coming to Minnesota the week after Christmas when I was 8. The first year we came to visit good family friends, the Berkleys (less formally refered to as "the Berks"), I told my parents that I was going to live here someday. Of course, they laughed at my tiny 8-year-old self, and gave me that condescending "Ok, Kelly" response. Although I think my parents the wisest, kindest, and smartest parents on the planet... they were completely wrong. After 10 years of only winterly visits, I made the move my freshman year of college. Sadly, my college getaway lasted only one year- it turns out I love my mom way more than I thought, and the academia of community college was a bit lacking for me. I moved from my favorite, beautiful, northern metropolis to quaint, country, podunk Greenville. Have you ever experienced culture shock?
Although Greenville College has brought wonderful experiences that I would not take back, exchange, or change for anything- I miss my beautiful Minnesota. After living in the north, I gained an accent with no intention of losing it, became a serious coffee snob without apologies, and adore cold weather and abhor midwest humidity.
People consistently ask me why I love Minnesota so much... and I wish I could give them an answer. It's the trees, the landscape, the lakes, the people, the snow, the liscense plates, the food, the coffee, the cold... It's everything. Everything is better here. Ok, so to be a bit more tangible, I'll make a Top Ten List.
Top Ten Reasons Why Minnesota (specifically Minneapolis area) is Better
1. Coffee (Caribou Coffee and Dunn Bros.)
2. Kelly Berkley's French Dips
3. Weather (super snowy winter, not deathly humid summer)
4. Original Pancake House
5. 24-Hour Cub Foods
6. Eden Prairie Brunswick Thursday Night $1 Bowling
7. Lakes (the beauty)
8. Targets (all have Starbucks inside, carrying baskets are nicer)
9. People (classy, quaint, nice, home-y, northern-y)
10. Broomball in the winter
Should I counteract those nice things with the single most frustrating element of Minneapolis? I'll just briefly mention... the ASANINE stoplights on the on-ramps to highways. LEARN TO MERGE, MINNESOTANS. Geesh.
It's taken me this whole day to write this post. That's ok- it's been quite an eventful day.
7am: OPH (Original Pancake House)
10am: Coffee at Caribou.
12pm: Left-over French Dips.
1:45pm: Head to MOA and IKEA to shop.
2:00pm: Stuck in traffic trying to get to the ramp taking you to the ramp that leads to the road where there's a stoplight to take you to one of the parking garages for the Mall.
2:30pm: Give up.
3pm: Visit Scrapbooks Too where I used to work. Buy unnecessary amount of paper.
4pm: Back to IKEA.
5pm: Rojo for dinner. Taste most delicious appetizer I'll ever eat.
8pm: Visit old roommates and roommates' parents.
10pm: Drive home and almost die because in the two hours that I visited, the roads had completely iced over. Almost hit a telephone pole making the left onto Scenic Heights, but that was all after I stopped on the side of the road to make sure the lady was okay whose car was inches from plunging down a hill into a lake. No biggie.
Overall, a pretty uneventful day in Minnesota.
All to say- I love it here. More than all those the fun things I do or things I hear, smell, taste, or see, I love the time I spend with my friends. I could sit and talk to my namesake, Kelly Berkley, all day everyday forever. I know the greatest people- and most of them live here.I might get iced in tomorrow when I need to be leaving for Illinois... Alas, I will continue to visit much too often. I'll always remember the smells of my old apartment, the sounds of the Berkley's coffee maker in the morning, the beautiful landscape of snow-covered pines and icy lakes, and the numbing cold of November's wind in the city. It's just home, that's all.
