Minneapolis...

Best remark by a local: "we have two seasons, construction and winter."

As my friend and I rode into town last week, we asked ourselves "what is the essence of Minneapolis?"

Well, after 5 days there (arguably during the best two months of the year), I'm not sure I've got the essence of it, but it's a great city/town. The downtown is neat (in fact there are overhead, covered walkways that enable the citizens of the city to walk throughout downtown during the winter months without ever having to go outside) and is split by a bus only, mostly pedestrian street (Nicollette) and is bordered on the east by the Mississippi river.

The people are friendly and somewhat surprisingly multi-cultural (had a haircut by a Vietnamese woman and my taxi driver was from Kenya-a far cry from Minnesota!).

I was quite impressed.