Atlantica - 01.09.2000, Side 30

28 A T L A N T I C A
Eye” Parrant, was escorted off the gov-
ernment land. He headed downstream
where he founded a town which he
named Pig’s Eye.
During the 1850s and 1860s,
Easterners arrived to make their for-
tunes and their mark. Franklin Steele,
James J. Hill and John Pillsbury built
flour mills and railroads, and real
estate and lumber empires. Waves of
Germans, Norwegians and Swedes fol-
lowed in the next 20 years, and settled
in the eight-county area now called the
Twin Cities.
The funny Scandinavian twang
made famous by the Cohen brothers’
award-winning film Fargo is still strong
here in Minnesota. A friendly architect
who sat next to me on the plane was
actually from Maine, but had in over 15
years picked up the “You betcha, ya”
speak, where every sentence ends in a
cheerful “ya” and includes weird excla-
mations like “uff da”.
And cheerful is the word. Locals are
friendly, and happy to give advice.
When I asked a number of people
“What is the most important thing to
see in Minneapolis?” they all replied,
“The Mall of America”. And indeed,
this is the mall that made the city
famous, the “biggest mall of ‘em all”.
Wanting to get that mall experience
over with on my first morning in the
city, I made an early start to the day
and arrived there at opening time. This
I would thoroughly recommend to
those keen to avoid the crowds. The
mall is pretty user-friendly though, and
despite its great size it’s difficult to get
lost, except perhaps in the parking lot.
The centre of the mall holds the seven
acre “Camp Snoopy” amusement park
– somewhere to take the kids when
they get bored with shopping. Camp
Snoopy features 24 rides and attrac-
tions, several restaurants, a wilderness
wildlife show and speciality shops.
For the grown-ups, the mall itself is a
shoppers’ paradise, containing such
major chains as The Gap, Banana
Republic, Abercrombie and Fitch,
Guess, and department stores
Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom
and Sears.
As if all this were not enough, there
is the Underwater World, a two-level,
70,000 ft2 aquarium that will take visi-
tors on a deep-sea journey via a 400-
foot-long tunnel.
A CITY WILDERNESS
The second attraction that locals men-
tion as a “must-see” is the numerous
lakes that are dotted around the actual
city. It is astonishing to see so much
nature within the city limits, and the
city-dwellers here can enjoy running,
rollerblading, swimming and canoeing
on a daily basis. The 22 lakes and
various streams, as well as the banks
of the Mississippi river, mean that
Minneapolis has as much green and
open space as it has city streets. Many
of Minneapolis’s priciest and most de-
sirable neighbourhoods wrap around
the lakes, and each lake seems to have
its own character, with a different
crowd hanging out at each one. The
hippest lake is Lake Calhoun, the
largest of the city lakes. Its location
near the trendy Uptown neighbour-
hood makes it a gathering place
for the young and beautiful – sun wor-
shippers, wind-surfers, rollerbladers,
cyclists and joggers who sweat their
way around the lake’s 3.2 mile perime-
ter.
Minnesota is the state that invented
rollerblades, and I have never seen so
many people whizzing past on wheels.
Long-limbed bikini-clad girls and bare-
chested men glide by; and wanting to
speak to one of these athletic folk I
spotted a half-naked man in the dis-
tance that I decided to stop. As he got
nearer, he turned out to be in his early
seventies, and fighting fit. Introducing
himself as Ernie Woodworm, a local
painter, he said that he had been roller-
blading for eight years.
“Well at my age you have to do
something to stay in shape,” he
smiled.
Meanwhile, my photographer was
THE TWIN CITIES
Ernie Woodworm, a painter and rollerblader.
The centre of “The Mall of America” holds the seven acre “Camp Snoopy” amusement park.
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