Land of frozen tundra and swedes

Hello from the faraway land of Minnesota! I'm in the Twin Cities this week visiting my cousin, Katie, her husband John, and her 15-month-old daughters Zoe and Grace. We have been on a number of adventures trekking back and forth between Minneapolis and St. Paul numerous times, but this post is about my personal adventures. I've taken to walking around the neighborhood to recharge my batteries while Katie and the girls recharge theirs with a nap (I've never been much of a napper, and I find a good walk much more refreshing).

So, I bundle up and trek through the snow for an hour or two and happily snap photos to entertain myself and keep me in an observant state of mind. The first step to creativity is observation, noticing the details as it were. I certainly didn't need to try very hard to notice this building:

Here's a close-up of the window above the center door in case you didn't notice it:

Hilarious. And here's the window of the storefront on the left side of the building:

Apparently, there was quite a controversy in the neighborhood when the opening of this establishment was announced. They were quite relieved to find out it's just an awesomely named restaurant featuring premium steaks (what else?).

I don't know on which day I found this fence, but I must have been rather fascinated with it at the time. I had like 80 pictures of various parts of it on my camera, but I liked these 2 the best:

I've always been into ivy; I don't know why.

There were lots of icicles going in crazy directions on the fence.

Then I found a little park and couldn't resist taking pictures of trees:

I traversed many a snowbank for a few photos of the shadows playing across the snow, and none of them worked out well. You can kind of see the neat shadows in this one though.

On one of my adventures, I crossed this spiffy bridge and headed toward downtown St. Paul. After a few turns, I got completely turned around and was late getting back to the house. Oops. At least I got these:

I liked the rust texture contrasting with the texture of the icicles

I was hoping for more forced perspective on this one.

A number of my nap time walks ended at the Swede Hollow Cafe. I love this place. They have fantastic coffee and pastries and the cafe is cozy and adorable. They also have a little garden on the side of the building that I imagine is awesome in the summer. Anyway, I did a lot of reading and journaling there.

Best pumpkin cookie I've ever had in my life.

I'm having a great time in Minnesota, and I think my next post will be pictures from Le Meridien and the Ice Bar (where we went last night). I'm looking forward to coming back home and seeing everybody before the semester starts and I turn into a hermit.