Of Minneapolis

Helsinki may not be on a real direct line between Riga and Boston, but it didn't seem too terribly far out of the way. Minnesota, on the other hand, is terribly far out of the way. But, that's where we went. Our Helsinki-Amsterdam flight was delayed, we missed the connection, and the only remaining flight across the Atlantic that day was heading to "The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul," as Northwest Airlines (now part of the Delta family) is apparently required to call what the rest of us call "Minneapolis." Anyway, we have some good friends there that we got to visit briefly and unexpectedly. That was actually really nice. Maybe, maybe even four-extra-hours-on-airplanes nice.

More importantly, your correspondent claims to have visited all 48 of the contiguous United States, but his claim to Minnesota was limited to speeding across I-90 and stopping for PB&J from the trunk at a highway rest stop. Now having slept in Minnesota, having eaten a genuine Minneapolis burrito (Tacqueria El Farolito in the Mission can breathe easy, the Minnesota competition is not close), and having seen this goofy movie theater in whatever Latino immigrant neighborhood our friends live in, we feel much more firmly grounded in our claim to having visited Minnesota. We can perhaps continue this trend if our next re-routed flight lands us in Little Rock.