It's definitely been refreshing to be learning a city again - what little I knew about the Twin Cities from my earlier jaunts is mostly outdated, and much has changed in the meantime. Plus we found a house in a corner of town I wasn't familiar with at all - go Victory! Ah, even the name is cheerful. So while finding our way around the North/Northwest, we can also reacquaint ourselves with old favorites like the chain of lakes, the Mississippi, First Avenue, and neighborhoods like Uptown and Northeast (and of course hanging with the fam). The list of restaurants to try seems never-ending, and the state must require a cool coffee shop and bakery on every block. And we have even easier access to The Current, still the best radio I've ever found.
I've also started working on a Master's at the University of Minnesota - ahem, Educational Policy and Administration, Comparative and International Development Education - a beautiful campus I hadn't been around much before (if you don't have a reason to be there, it's kind of a hectic place to visit). I'm also still trying to hook up a job there, so for any potential employers who have done a web search on me, don't I seem cool?? So that's provided some structure and new faces to my existence here, at least, and plenty of reading material.
Some Austin habits have been harder to break - Alamo Drafthouses, Austin Film Society, and big Whole Foods stores don't have any serious competition here, not to mention all the various music fests. But I guess I'm grown-up enough to understand I shouldn't base everything on entertainment and shopping (sigh). I'll hold off on any weather statements until I have some winter behind me, but heck, I like wearing jackets sometimes, so I think I'll make it. And I really did miss stuff like this:
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