September 10, 2008 by Kathryn Smotherman

Today was...interesting. I discovered that I have a paper due tomorrow so I realize I need to go somewhere I can do some serious work. Home was out of the question because I really didn't want distraction and I hate the dim lighting so I just wanted to go somewhere else. I planned yesterday that today after class I would take the light rail to the Nicollet Mall area and walk to Panera Bread located on 8th and Nicollet Ave.

Being the super genius I am I decide to use Map Quest to find me this location. It tells me it's at a corner of a block in that intersection. I think that's sooooo easy to find. So after walking about a mile to home and back to the lightrail I take the lightrail to downtown Minneapolis/Nicollet Mall and I get off. Not be accustomed to the big city, EVERYTHING looks the same to me and not all streets are labeled so I have to walk about 2 blocks in the wrong direction before I realize I'm going the wrong direction so I turn around and walk 4 blocks before I look at the map again and realize, oh! I was going the right way originally so I turn around and go back noticing some interesting things on the way such a giant shoe on wheels. I'm not kidding. It was a giant red, high heeled shoe with wheels and a man sitting in where the foot would go driving it. I also saw a giant truck (like a U-HAUL truck) with these windows on either side showcasing shoes like a shop window might--not a picture, they were real...this is an odd city. Anyway, walking along and taking several twists and turns I finally wind up on 2nd Avenue...now, you see, in Nebraska numbered streets are streets and ONLY streets. In Minnesota there are numbered parkways, avenues, and streets so I get thoroughly confused at how 7th street turned into 2nd so I walk back until I finally get to an intersection on my small section map and do a bunch more walking until I finally reach the intersection 8th Street and Nicollet Avenue..only..none of the corners has a Panera Bread. There is a giant Macy's store, a giant Barnes and Noble, a bank, and mall entrance. I walk around in circles a few time and see nothing. I walk up Nicollet Avenue toward 7th and still see no Panera Bread. I walk back and enter the Nicollet Mall itself and find a mall directory..no Panera in the mall itself, but this is the location it's supposed to be. I walk around some more and still no Panera Bread. I look at my map and see there's a Target Center so I decide I'll just go there and do my shopping a couple days early.

....just because Target owns an entire block of city doesn't mean there's actually a Target store there. I walk around this block several times and do not encounter a Target store. Frustrated and having lost 2 hours of my scheduled paper writing time I decide I'm going home. So, I follow the map trying to find the light rail. I walk by a station and pay no attention to it until about half a block later there is a sidewalk closed sign so I walk back and THEN notice the light rail station. I laugh to myself and walk toward it and once on the platform I notice something odd..it doesn't look familiar. I look up and sure enough I'm not at the light rail stop I got off on, I walked to a different one along the same route somehow. It'll still take me to home so I decide to wait for it. It's late..it tends to be in down town since it has to stop for traffic and idiot pedestrians who walk on the tracks a lot. But as I'm sitting there waiting I notice I'm sitting right across from a strip club. Why there is a strip club right across the tracks from a rail station, I have no idea, but it was still interesting to see. I've never seen a strip club in person so I find it interesting to look at and I notice out in front there is this advertisement to come in to have "your every fantasy begin" and it's got this naked woman on it with selective parts of her body covered with words..I just look at it for a while trying to wrap my head around how this is legal in public when I notice this man comes out of the strip club bar and doesn't even look around just comes out, turns, and goes right next door to another bar. Quite the life to live I guess O.o

 Luckily the train did come and after a lively phone conversation with Josh and Mama I made it home. I lost 3.5 hours of work time and am sore beyond words and a bit disappointed since I dressed up to go out and all only to not do anything but..you need experiences like this to laugh at sometimes. I'm not angry at what happened..it helped take my mind off of things and though it was frustrating, I learned a lot about down town and got my exercise for the year so all is not lost. But after that my weekly trip to the Mall of America to window shop is off for the week. I don't know how I'm going to get to school tomorrow on these feet @_@ I'll make it work...somehow.

Anyway! The richest part of all of this is..once I got home I was tempted to call this Panera location, wondering if they even existed. But first, I check a Google map...Panera exists all right. It was half a block between 8th and 9th street: the only direction I didn't go. I have been living in Minneapolis not quite two weeks...it's already driven me insane. But in a good way. I can't stop laughing at least.