Bob and I made a quick weekend trip (Friday – Sunday) to Minneapolis to see my favorite band, They Might Be Giants, at First Avenue. The whole trip was just fantastic, though. Really so much more to Minneapolis than the Mall of America! We flew in from Lansing and took the Metro to the hotel. $1.75 each, and very comfortable and clean.
We stayed at the Radisson Blu downtown. Centrally located, it’s a very nice hotel. After checking in, we walked around a bit before dinner.
We had dinner at Ichiban, grill-side cooking. It was excellent.
After dinner, we wandered down to Brit’s Pub. The weather was incredible, 73 degrees that evening, so we sat outside.
Lots of people-watching. It seems everyone wanted to make use of the beautiful weather.
After a drink at Brit’s, we went to the Devil’s Advocate. It’s small and charming inside, with artists’ lofts above.
After the Devil’s Advocate, we stopped at The Local. We sat outside as it was still warm, but the inside was gorgeous too.
Our final stop for the evening was Prohibition. Up in the Foshay Tower, it really is a lovely place. We each had a drink called (I think) the Original Sin. It included an ice cube of Vietnamese coffee and an ice cube made of coconut water. It was delicious, and I believe the most expensive drink I’ve ever ordered.
We wandered (possibly stumbled) our way back to the hotel, stopping to take a photo of the Mary Tyler Moore statue on the way.
She’s a little creepy.
Saturday morning we got up and rather blearily made our way to breakfast at the Hen House. It’s a nice enough place and all, but I was so surprised to have for breakfast what is absolutely the best sandwich I have ever had. Ever. It was so simple, but so delicious: Bacon, Egg, Avocado, Cream Cheese and Tomatoes on Multigrain. Seriously, best sandwich of my life. If I would have known it was going to be that good, I would have taken a photo before eating it.
After breakfast, we walked down to the First Avenue venue to check it out. On the way, we spotted this cool signage.
Sold out!
Next, we made our way down to the Mississippi River to check out the park system.
We stopped for another coffee at the Wilde Roast Cafe.
I had a lavender iced mocha, and it was quite tasty. Bob had a breve and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Near the Pillsbury A Mill, we went down near the disused bit by the energy plant to look around. 
This website talks a little about the Philip W. Pillsbury Park. We hopped the barricade and walked around. It’s really an unusual area.
Walking back downtown.
The Gold Medal Flower building is now part of the Mill City Museum complex. Here’s some great historical information about the sign.
The North Star Woolen Mill was a big deal until the 1940s. Now it holds loft apartments.
This impressive structure with the green patina roof is the Minneapolis City Hall. It’s jointly owned by the city and Hennepin County. It was built in 1888. Read more about the history here.
After all that walking, we stopped at the IDS Center (the tallest building in the state! The link there has a really interesting Wiki on the Center) for smoothies at Cosi.
That’s the Foshay Tower (Prohibition) from the outside.
We got back to the hotel and rested a bit before heading to dinner at Eli’s downtown.
The tater tot appetizer was excellent.
We made a quick stop back at the hotel before going to the concert. We then grabbed an iced tea at O’Donovan’s Irish Pub before getting in line at First Avenue (queuing up at around 7:30).
First Avenue is really cool and the concert was so awesome (read more here).
They finished around 11:30pm, and we ran in the rain back to the hotel and fell asleep quickly.
The next morning, we got up and had breakfast at the News Room
before making our way back to the Metro and to the airport.
It was the best time ever. Seeing my favorite band with my best friend was amazing. Thank you, Bob for another fantastic vacation! Can’t wait for our next trip.
