St. Paul

From the Hague, we arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota. As I’ve mentioned, this is another regular stop that we make to visit our friend Kathy and at the same time, get acquainted with this part of the US.

St. Paul is one of the twin cities alongside Minneapolis, making up Minnesota’s only true urban area. I was a baseball fan as a kid and for some reason I never stopped to ponder the odd mascot of the Minnesota Twins baseball team. It was just a name. I didn’t think much about the Lakers either, for that matter, another strange mascot originating from Minnesota.

In spite of their weak efforts to name sports teams, the Twin Cities has really grown on me over the years. I would say it’s a livable part of the world except there are no mountains. I can tolerate boring landscapes for some time but it’s not where I would want to be long term. Yes, it’s nice to have 10,000 lakes, but, apologies to my aquaphile friends, it still leaves me wanting.

not an aquaphile but who doesn't enjoy a drink overlooking the Mississippi

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Our friend Kathy has been a wonderful host to us over the years. I met her in India back in October 2008. She’s known our daughters since they were born. Like the Netherlands, she lives in a place that is strategic for us from a travel standpoint. Amsterdam and Minneapolis/St. Paul are hubs for the airlines we generally fly back and forth from Africa to the US. Her strong ties with my in-laws laid the foundation for a wonderful friendship that has lasted fifteen years.

Though Kathy always racks her brain to try to find ways to entertain us while we’re there. It’s nice but we really don’t need to be entertained. We sort of figure things out as we go. In any case, she had croquet and cornhole for the girls (and me) to play in the margins of our day. There was a bit more pressure this time since Kiran’s birthday happened while we were there. In addition to cake and so forth, and as nerds do, we opted on the Minnesota Science Museum.

I sense an eyeroll from most people when entertaining thoughts of a science museum. But it could be because you haven’t been to one recently. People that design these things nowadays are pretty amazing. We’ve been to a few in various cities and they really are impressive, particularly if you have children. It’s sort of like watching some of the animated movies. It’s an excuse to do something fun that you might not have done without kids in tow.

this is probably more impressive when you see it in person

The one deterrent is that often the cost of entry for these things is steep. I’m guessing they must be mostly self-funded in order to charge so much for entry. My fear is that they have already priced out the families on the lower end of the economic spectrum. A sad phenomenon where the rich are given educational opportunities and the poor are left out. I assume they have arrangements for schools, which would give access to some. Otherwise, it’s not accessible.

future newscasters

old ad promoting tape worms for weight loss...

But yes, it’s a really interesting museum. I will refrain from describing it all here, but we ended up spending far more time there than we anticipated. We could have even spent longer to see and/or experience all that there was. It also had a nice view overlooking the Mississippi River.

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One other thing of note that we did was an outdoor concert at the Minnesota History Center. While the music itself wasn’t that interesting (I’ll refrain from naming the group), it was a nice evening out. There were food trucks supporting the event, one providing Greek and Egyptian food, the other French (crepes). We tapped into both, obviously. For the latter one, I chatted with the lady serving up the crepes. She had a thick accent and she seemed rather pleased when I spoke to her in French. I admit that I was happy that she asked me what part of France I was from. I realize that she’s lived outside France for nine years and Minnesota is not awash with francophones, so her judgment of good French is probably not what it was. But I’ll take it.