Workday/Vacationday

Today I had 5 schools again but no fairs so I got the afternoon to myself!

I decided not to eat at the hotel breakfast buffet today because it costs so much, and I tried to find a Caribou Coffee (the local starbucks-like chain, but starbucks is everywhere too) to start my day, but somehow the directions I looks up didn't work, and I wasted all my breakfast time driving around and I still had 20 miles on the highway to get through, so I ditched the idea and headed to the school.

My first school didn't have any students waiting for me, so I got to leave early and the front desk lady gave me great directions to the local hot spot cafe for breakfast. it is called Keys Cafe and Bakery and boy was it worth it! best french toast of my life and the hashbrowns were so crispy! I got a cinnamon bun for the road (aka for breakfast tomorrow when I have to be on the other side of town at 6:45 in the morning and dont want to think about breakfast) and went to the rest of my schools. I had several really good visits with about 8 kids each.

Then for the afternoon I headed to downtown Minneapolis to check out the worlds biggest target and the nicollet mall area (a nice pedestrian street downtown). Parking was a nightmare to find, but once I did find a place to park I got to use the skywalks! they really do connect every building like a maze so, although it was still almost 50 degrees and windy, I didn't have to walk outside.

Turns out the target isn't the world's largest. bummer. but it does have a 3 story front entrance and it is a two story store - it has an escalator called a vermaport which is a dual escalator for you...and your shopping cart!

The rest of the street was pretty fun too, many of the tall office buildings had retail stores in the bottom couple of floors and the skywalks went right through some stores! You have to walk through the men's department at Macy's just to get through the building! talk about prime real estate, hahaha

I ate at a place called the Newsroom. it was kind of a sports bar kind of place, but it did have good food.

I left downtown around 6pm and for the first time have been able to lounge in the hotel room without having to hurry up and answer email so I could go to bed to wake up early the next day. yay!