FREEEEEZING

Its cold.

Everyone takes a sick pride in it too.
"So Nigel, is this your first Minnesota winter?"
well yes it is
"OH!" (sympathetic look) "well it hasn't really started yet, wait til March". People act like they're sorry that the uninitiated have to suffer so, but I suspect that subconsciously they are rejoicing that someone else now has to suffer like they have since childhood. Apparently by March, it'll still be -10 degrees C but all the snow will have gone a muddy black brown, much like everyone's mood.

Our area is very beautiful right now, but I forgot to take photos right after the snow. One Saturday a couple of weeks back we had seven inches. Liz and I went for a wander around the neighbourhood on our way back from the cinema sometime past midnight. With all the roads covered in snow it was like wandering in a forest, with just tall trees and houses. All softly illuminated by a multitude of Christmas lights.

Unfortunately I didn't capture that on film, but I did photograph the rather more gritty Minneapolis downtown where I work for Ameriprise Financial. Its going very well. My boss is from India so he understands me when I say things like 'Full Stop' (rather then Period) and helped me explain things delicately when a colleague asked if it was appropriate for her 12 year old to be using the word 'Bugger' (he'd been reading Harry Potter).

Some people at work say they just want me to talk so they can hear my 'beautiful accent'. I can't help but feel slightly used. Seriously though, everyone is very friendly. Unfortunately this means my usual habit of politely ignoring people and pretending that I didn't see them so I don't have to think of something pointless to say doesn't really fly. I've discovered the best way to get myself out of this situation is to say something about how incredibly cold it is outside. This confirms me as a wimpy Brit and pleases everyone.

It's Christmas soon (you may have heard). Personally I've only just recovered from Thanksgiving, but maybe that's the point. A mini binge in readiness for the great Holiday binge. A kind of binge training. This is important because here it isn't just Christmas but Hanukkah and Kwanzaa too, so you really have to be prepared. As I mentioned the houses everywhere are completely decked out in lights, the wreathes on peoples doors are size of Saturn's rings. According to a colleague you can pay up to $1500 to have a professional team come around and add sparkle to your premises. He thought that was ridiculous until he almost broke his neck trying to hang lights from his garage roof. Weighing the $1500 against the potential health care costs it doesn't seem so silly.

Well that's all for now. We hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Home Sweet Home

 
Hello all,

Liz and I are moved into our new apartment in St Paul Minnesota. I went for a bike ride around my area today to take some photo's to show you what it's like. I've got a job in downtown Minneapolis which is on the other side of the Mississipi from St Paul. Its about 5 miles or so from our apartment.

This is our apartment block, we have the top right hand apartment in this photo. Its the only one with all the shades open. For some reason other people seem to have an aversion to natural light. Below is our front sitting/dining room. It feels rather huge for only two people.

We need to get around to putting things on the wall, but please note the snazzy red and white chairs around the table that took weeks to 'create'.
I took these photos in the morning when the light comes in nicely. The big oak just outside our windows affords us some nice shade.  
Our road is called 'Grand Avenue', pretty impressive eh?! We have a coffee shop a short walk to the right and a pub a short walk to the left. So that takes care of mornings and evenings.

The coffee shop is a real locals place with some people seemingly in permanent residence. At one dollar fifty for a coffee and twenty five cents a refill you can understand why. We spent about five hours there one day (I was a little jittery by the end) and most of the people who had been there when we arrived were still there when we left....

This is the view down Grand Avenue, looking pubwards. Very leafy, not too many people getting shot, I promise. You may think from the name that 'Grand' is the Grandest avenue in town. That however is not the case. The street one block north and running parrallel to Grand is 'Summit Avenue'.

Summit is reputedly the longest row of restored Victorian mansions in the US. These place are huge rambling complexes that were built, according to one of Liz's lecturers, by railroad tycoons. Most of the palatial ones are broken up into apartments now. Not content with trees in either side of the street, Summit has trees down the middle as well. It leads down to the Mississippi from our place, which is the way I cycled today. Its about a mile to the river.

At the end of Summit is a lookout over the river across to Minneapolis.

Thats downtown Minneapolis poking up over the trees. I took a left down the path leading along the river bank and followed another bike path past more big houses. This one is Tudor style but they come in all shapes and sizes. Tudor, Georgian, Clapboard farmhouses, Spanish Villa's and Frank Lloyd-Wright inspired designs sit side by side. Its a kind of architectural disney world. The Mississippi is relatively narrow at this point, both banks are parkland in this area, so when you are down on the banks, its hard to believe you are in the city. This concludes my tour. I hope you enjoyed it!
 

Making Jam

Its not everyday Jon Bon Jovi yells, 'thank you Eau Claire' but now for the first time in history it has happened. Liz and I were standing on a sand bar in the middle of the Chippewa river at the time, having waded through thirty meters of water to get as close as possible to the local music festival without actually crashing it. Jon Bon, clearly mellowing with age, has now turned his hand to country music which put him at the top of the bill of Eau Claire's very own 'Country Jam USA'. All week the town has seen a huge influx of pickup trucks and grass chewing, stetson wearing music fans. Apparently though, the country crowd doesn't hold 'rock' in too high regard, and from comments I overheard in town, the arrival of Jon was being taken as a slight imposition even if he has converted to the fold. "I'm going to country jam" one lady said "but I don't care much for Bon Jovi" she muttered as she carried her groceries out of the shop. So it was that the fans at the Jam divided into two camps, those who didn't care for Jon, and those who didn't care for country. It seems it's not just the politics over here that are plagued by bi-partisanship, although the power of Jovi managed to unite the crowd in classic style. No one can deny that even those who detest Jon and his white rock buddies can't resist punching the air and loosing their voices to 'Livin on a Prayer' and so it proved at Country Jam.



No doubt you're all aware I'm not the only high profile Brit whose come stateside lately. The Beckhams have decided to join me, which has aroused a considerable amount of interest. This is especially surprising given that the world hot dog eating contest gets five times higher ratings over here than the average major league soccer game. I'm not sure whether that says more about eating contests or soccer. Incidentally, reigning champion Kobayashi, competing with a serious jaw injury, couldn't hold onto his title despite beating his own record of 60 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Anyway, back to the Beckhams, Posh gushed that she had 'No idea' so many people would be waiting to greet them, before waxing lyrical about hanging out with the Cruises and having Leno over for tea. Presumably she did have some idea she'd be appearing on one of the planets biggest chat shows that evening. Its embarrassing to see star struck Brits being idiotically obsequious in Hollywood.


In the next couple of days Liz and I will be moving to our new apartment in St Paul Minnesota. We've got a U-Haul truck and lots of charity shop furniture. Next time I post I'll put some photos up of the place. I've been in and out of the city having job interviews for the last few weeks, so have been pretty busy. OK, thats about it!

Going to the Ball Game

It was your typical Wisco summer day. The sky was blue and cloudless, trees green and the air buzzing with more biting insects than you can shake a swatter at. We were in the Jeep, and I was about to be 'adjusted'. No this wasn't part of some American initiation ceremony where new immigrants get strapped to a chair with their eyes clamped open and forced to watch every Eddie Murphy fat suit movie in quick succession. Thankfully this adjustment would be restricted to my vertebrae and stay a safe distance from my cranium.



The visit to the chiropractors owed more to a fascination over what exotic noises my back would make when manipulated than any serious medical need. Although as it happens I found out I have one shoulder significantly lower than the other. This was probably due to carrying a bag over just one of them for all those school years. I castigated myself on all the time spent laughing at the French exchange students. Look who's laughing now. This aside the upshot of all the satisfying back cracking was that Dr Dave offered Liz and I his box seats for the local baseball team on the upcoming weekend as he would be out of town. Never missing an opportunity for a cultural caper (or a freebie) we duly accepted.



Sunday rolled around and after a busy day stripping and painting chairs (we are preparing our furniture) we headed off to the ball game. Baseball is played in the evening during the summer months and as a spectator sport is in the same phylum as cricket - largely an excuse for groups to congregate and mingle with little chance of missing anything crucial during beer runs. Liz, a veteran of the Eau Claire softball circuit was called upon to give me regular briefings on precisely every aspect of the game. As a quick learner I effortlessly mastered the concepts (I spend most of my day writing CV's) of 'a double' and 'a full count' which in the words of Liz is a point at which 'something will definitely happen' - beer runners beware. The old timer to my right sat nervously as if next to a crazy person one wouldn't want to offend. We later heard that the old chap upon next seeing Dr Dave exclaimed incredulously that 'That guy didn't seem to know a thing about baseball!'.



Between innings, of which there are nine, members of the crowd took part in competitions on the pitch such as pulling a portaloo, spinning round for ten seconds before racing for the finish and blind folded ball chasing. In all of these a huge fuzzy mascot was on hand to ensure that the smallest, youngest and slowest would always prevail. By tackling, and pinning their stronger opponents 'Trax' enforced an on field inferiocracy. There was also the mass participation sport of opposing sides of the stadium seeing who could sing a popular advertising jingle the loudest.



More than anything though, the ball game is a chance for the community to connect, the team is sponsored by local people and local businesses, and the familiarity with which the crowd greets each other reflects this feeling of family. The singing of the national anthem and even more so, baseball's own official anthem 'Take me out to the ball game' may sound like an exercise in wholesome hokum but what's wrong with that? Why have we made wholesomeness a bad thing in our cynical postmodern world? By scoffing at those things that seem unblemished by the 'real world' we create a mindset whereby the profane becomes inevitable. I have to say that I liked the ball game, the family atmosphere and the feeling of community because in connects us to a more innocent time. I think we can all do with a little more innocence.