This past weekend I visited Minneapolis for the first time. I spent most of my time there working on business for the Advisory Committee on the Constitution. But I did have a bit of time to look around at the part of the city near our hotel. I flew in a few hours before my meeting began on Saturday at noon, used the light rail to get close to my hotel, and walked down part of Nicollet Mall; Sunday morning I took a walk before breakfast, and walked around the area for a couple hours after my meeting ended on Monday at noon before I headed back to the airport.I thought the city was very attractive, and I am looking forward to when the PCUSA General Assembly meets there in 2010.
I had researched how to get to from the light rail stop at Nicollet Mall to my hotel. Google Street View helped me orient myself in advance, so that I would recognize what landmarks I would see — as long as I was going in the proper direction. But I chose to use Nicollet Mall as the route to get close to my hotel; Nicollet Mall is a pedestrian mall, so unfortunately the Google Street View vehicles have not captured images of what a beautiful street it is.Of course, I had to stop at the Mary Tyler Moore statue in front of the Macy's at the corner with 7th Street. It's not that I was a big fan of the show, but while the show was in its first run, it was one that I watched, largely because I didn't have cable.
There are lots of larger statues in downtown Minneapolis, and I really appreciated the art being made available to the public everywhere I went.
On Sunday morning I took a walk early to get breakfast and a cup of coffee. While I was walking down 6th St., I saw flashing lights like an emergency vehicle slowly approaching me in the distance. As they got closer I saw that they were three police motorcycles followed by a crowd of something that seemed to be moving low and close to the ground. Then I saw that what was following the police were a group of people in racing wheelchairs. A bystander explained to me that this was the Wheeler division in the Twin Cities Marathon. I saw about 20 participants in this division, and was very impressed.
On Monday I was warned traffic for a football game that day might complicate my trip back to the airport. Everywhere I went that afternoon I was seeing Vikings jerseys and cheesehead hats. This Minneapolis camoflage would not work in Pittsburgh.
Monday afternoon I also hung out a bit at the PCUSA Polity Conference and caught up with a number of old friends. No General Assembly event would be complete without seeing the Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons and Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, two cool people.
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