We're Not In Alabama Any More...

Life in Minnesota sure is different than Alabama!  I've posted a few of these to Facebook so if you're following me there some of these might be repeats, but here are some of the experiences we've had so far that probably wouldn't happen back in Birmingham.

• The news and everyday topics of conversation are sometimes eye-opening.  The local paper ran an article covering automobile safety while driving your car out on the ice of a lake!  (Roll your windows down and take your seatbelt off.)  The script for the 5 second local evening news promo:  "We're Minnesotans, bring on the snow!"
• We received 4" of snow, and you had your choice of milk and bread at the store.  People shovel it out of the way and get on with life - stores are still crowded, school and work starts on time, and everything happens as planned.
• A lot more cultures come together in the Twin Cities - the Minneapolis library carries books in the Somali language, for example.  In Birmingham, when you say "let's go eat Vietnamese" everyone knows where to go because there's only one place.  Here, I stopped counting at 50.  This town is crazy about banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches).  All sorts of restaurants have them, not just the ethnic places.  There are also genres here that are totally absent back in the 'ham, like Filipino, Malaysian and Dutch.
• Hockey everywhere.  It is routine to be driving through the neighborhood and see an ice rink, or even a guy in a park with a hose spraying water on a field to create a rink.  There are 14 public outdoor rinks to choose from in our suburb alone, not to mention entire stores dedicated just to hockey.  In line at the Chipotle, the middle aged mom behind you is giving her son very detailed hockey advice for his team.
• Conversely, I have yet to hear anyone say anything about college football.
• Campus life is dramatically different.  Unlike at UAB, people at the U of M actually wear their own school's athletic fan gear.  I walk across the Mississippi River routinely to get to the other side of campus.  I have at least 12 coffee shops to choose from on campus, too.
• Grocery shopping is different too.  Thanks to local companies like General Mills and Betty Crocker, the cereal and cake mix aisles at the grocery store are awesome!  Hello, Chocolate Cheerios!  And some of the stores have drive-up car loading - you buy your stuff, it gets whisked away to a conveyor belt, and then you pull up and they load your car.  Nice in winter.  Co-ops (grocery stores owned by the people who shop there) are popular here, too.  On the other hand, we do miss Publix!  Grocery shopping here requires a little more planning.
• They are serious about alternative transit here.  There are hundreds of miles of bike trails, there is light rail, and there are not only dedicated high occupancy/bus lanes on the interstates, but there are bus stops on the interstate.  You see bikers everywhere, even in winter.  I don't ride my bike to work, and I'm in the minority in my workgroup.

Those are just some of the things we're adjusting to in our new home.  It's definitely different than Alabama! I'm sure we'll share more as we go through 2012 (and more pictures will return to our posts soon, too - we're finally getting the home office organized so we can be more efficient with the digital picture organization.)  Happy New Year everyone!