We arrived in town on Friday afternoon and visited The Art Institute. It was a huge museum and they had a ton of paintings. Not as cool as the Art Institute in Chicago (my favorite art museum to date) but pretty cool nonetheless. The best part about our visit is that we found out about tours of a cool prairie-style house owned by the museum that gives holiday tours on weekends during the season.
So Saturday morning we got up early and toured the Purcell Cutts House. This was one of the only historic homes (maybe the only) I've ever wanted to live in (they had a modern bathroom). It was beautiful and open and sunny and they had a window by the front door that had Peek A Boo set in the glass.
When I get rich and famous I totally want one of those.
Here's a view from inside:
The outside:
And one of the art glass windows:
After touring the house, we had lunch at a Malaysian restaurant down the street from the art museum. They had a durian smoothie on the menu. Fortunately for all the smoothie machine was broken. Our waiter said it smells like a combination of baby diaper and gasoline. Ew.
Afterward we drove/walked around the UM campus and got milkshakes at Annie's Parlour- a local burger and milkshake place that was recommended to me by a friend from youth group who went there for undergrad.
After UM we went down to the riverfront to the Mill City Museum where we learned about the history of Minneapolis and the milling industry that was thriving there around the turn of the 20th century. Here's a view of the Mississippi River from the museum observation deck.
That evening we saw A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater. You wouldn't think it, but Minneapolis is actually a big theater city.
Sunday morning is always hard to plan because few things are open. We went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and walked around until I froze and it was time to go home. A couple cool pictures from there (Click to see the whole thing. I don't know why Blogger is chopping the side off):
And there were so many things we didn't get to see! If you're in the Midwest and want a good long weekend trip, I'd definitely recommend Minneapolis. This also helps me to check off one of my 101 in 1001 items.
