Welcome to the Grain Belt: My Birthday Weekend

Thursday, June 5, 2014

My Birthday Weekend

Greetings! May has been a month filled with warmer temperatures, longer days, and flowers blooming everywhere. One of my favorite parts of having a birthday in May is that everything is so fresh and coming back to life. And the air is perfumed with the fragrant scent of lilac trees and apple blossoms.

My birthday started with a package full of presents from my parents, some of which were souvenirs from their recent trip to France.

I then baked cupcakes to share with my office.

And David took me out for Italian, followed by a stroll down to Lake Calhoun to watch the sunset.

To celebrate with my friends, I decided to have a picnic in the Lake Harriet rose garden, or "Cake by the Lake." I even decided to order a fancy birthday cake from French Meadow Bakery. I realized that I hadn't bought myself a birthday cake since my senior year at Smith, when I ordered an amazing cake from La Fiorentina.

One of my friends even brought lemonade with fresh fruit!

The same friend who brought the lemonade also made me the corsage from ribbon.

My birthday weekend ended with a fantastic breakfast at French Meadow Bakery, where I enjoyed raspberry-pecan pancakes. And the weather was nice enough to sit outside on the terrace.

I couldn't have asked for a lovelier birthday weekend!

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Welcome.

Minnesota, a state truly worthy of the numerous appellations which it has been given: the Corn Belt, the Grain Belt, Land of 10,000 Lakes, the Upper Midwest, the Gopher State, and home of Al Franken, only to name a few. Minnesota, a state whose natural beauty is exemplified in its name, the Dakota word for "sky-tinted water."

Minnesota is a state in which I had never dreamed of living. If not a European capital, I assumed that I would always reside in a U.S. city located not more than 350 miles inland from the East or West Coast. The notion of relocating from Munich to a city in the U.S. Midwest with limited public transit and even harsher winters than NW Pennsylvania was not particularly appealing. Moreover, the thought of bringing a European to a U.S. city with no U-Bahn was frightening as well.

The inception of our relocation to the Midwest happened last spring when David was offered a research position in Minneapolis. The only previous knowledge we had of Minneapolis was obtained through my layover in the MSP Airport in 1999 and through watching the Coen Brothers' cult classic "Fargo" twice.

Despite our many initial doubts, after doing thorough research, we were convinced of the livability of the Twin Cities. It didn't hurt that a number of college and grad school classmates and coworkers - including a former Smith College DJ from Minnesota whose judgement I trusted - assured me that the Twin Cities was a wonderful place to live.

So far, those friends and coworkers have been correct in their assertions. Minneapolis and Saint Paul form a cultural center in the Upper Midwest which includes theaters, museums, art galleries, music venues, funky ethnic restaurants, and microbreweries. What's more, the Twin Cities are much more progressive than I realized. The Twin Cities are also in the forefront of the eco-friendly movement, claiming the title of the number one biking city in the United States. And the cities' prime location on the Mississippi River as well as the myriad of lakes within the city limits create a truly unique landscape.

As I had intended to start a blog while in Munich about bad European fashion trends and tragically never did realize that goal, I am determined to regularly update this blog so that my colleagues and friends who live so far away can see what I am experiencing here. It is with these opening words that I say welcome to the Grain Belt.