she was one in a million...

I am a little bit in love with Miami.  Or South Beach rather.  Despite grand plans to visit the Florida Keys, the Everglades, Little Cuba etc. we ended up not leaving South Beach the entire time.  At least getting to and from the airport you get to cross over the big bridges that connect downtown to Miami Beach, the ones that  are always the scene of car chases in any movie that has ever been set in Miami.  But that was about the extent of seeing anything besides the beach, the hotel pool and Ocean Avenue.  I wish I could have stayed a month.  

On our final night in Minneapolis we hosted a farewell for Fiona, who is finishing her posting and returning to Australia at the end of the month.  She was convinced we were holding it at a soup kitchen, because the venue was called Mission America Kitchen (like Sydney City Mission?), but it actually turned out to be a really nice restaurant/lounge.  Which no one wanted to leave, so we ended up going through twice as much wine as we had budgeted for.  Man, Australians can drink a lot!

From there Jen had a hot tip on a Minneapolis classic, that she insisted we had to check out - Nye's Polonaise (I kept on forgetting what it was called, so told the cab driver we were going to a bar that rhymes with Spagetti Bolognese.  He knew where to take us).  Apparently, according to google, my most reliable of sources, a polonaise is a slow dance of Polish origin in 3/4 time, which entirely makes sense.  

Also according to google: "Nye's Polonaise Room is a one-of-a-kind Minneapolis treasure that has charmed and entertained people since 1949. It's a place where live polka music moves people to dance. Where you can sing your favorite lounge tunes, everything from Patsy Cline to Dean Martin with piano singer Lou Snider. Enjoy authentic Polish food from a menu that also features all the supper club favorites such as Nye's Famous Prime Rib and Jumbo Lobster Tail."

While according to Esquire magazine, Nye's Polonaise is the number one bar in America.  

Imagine gold glitter vinyl booths.  Imagine the World's Most Dangerous Polka Band (we know, because their t-shirts say so).  And imagine Sarah singing her litle heart out to old Frank Sinatra classics behind the piano.

It was definitely an interesting experience.  A quintessential slice of Middle America, that you don't see in LA or New York.  Just as well Fiona and I were there to leave our own small Aussie stamp on the establishment - by teaching everyone the heel-and-toe polka.  Heel and toe, heel and toe, slide, slide, slide, slide...

The entire conference week was absolutely exhausting.  We hosted a number of events, and the days were extraordinarily long: 7.00am breakfast meetings and receptions until 2.00am.  Of course, we probably didn't have to go to all of the receptions, but they were a lot of fun, and after being invited it would have been rude not to have shown up!  While a lot were held in boring hotels, there were a few stand-outs: the SUNY and Arcadia receptions at Windows on Minnesota at the top of the IDS tower, with amazing views of the city; the British Council reception at the Nicollet Island Pavillion, just because it was in the middle of the Mississippi; and the IFSA-Butler reception at Bar Lurcat overlooking Loring Park, on an absolutely magical night, which won hands down for best food and wine.

Which is not taking into account our Australia reception, which of course won for everything.  I may be slightly biased, but the general consensus seemed to be that it was the best (and biggest) party of the week.  Jen did an amazing job pulling it all together.  I initially suspected that we may have just been big noting ourselves when everyone was saying that our reception is the most popular of the conference, but judging by the number of people who came up to me begging for tickets, I think it is actually true.

The venue was the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota - a spectactular and entirely unique space that is kind of impossible to describe.  Unfortunately all of the best photos are on my work laptop, so I'll have to post them some other time.  


Jen & Daniel

Jen from our DC office is actually from Minneapolis, and it was great to have some local knowledge of where to go out.  Most nights we had multiple receptions to attend, but on the Monday we managed to clear out the schedule and go Uptown to Chino Latino for a team dinner.  Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to start the week with cocktails the size of my head, because it turned into quite a drunken - but very fun - night.  As Fiona always says, there are only two food groups at NAFSA: alcohol and fried stuff.


I'm a sucker for any drink that is served with a pink umbrella

From DC it was straight to Minneapolis-St Paul (via Chicago) for our biggest event of the year - and the biggest international education conference in the world (over 8,000 attendees this year).

In recent years the conference has been held in Montreal and Seattle, so I was a little bit bummed that we scored Minneapolis this year.  The only thing I knew about Minneapolis was that it has the biggest mall in theworld, the Mall of America, which, considering I hate shopping malls, is a terrible claim to fame.  To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure where Minnesota is - next to Wisconsin and below Canada, but I don't think I would be able to pick it out on a map.  

As it turned out we were so busy I barely got to see any of Minneapolis, except from a cab window.  From what I did see it actually was quite a nice city, at least at this time of the year.  Winter would be another story entirely - in downtown there are heated skywalks connecting all the buildings because it is too cold to actually go outside.  I would die! I seriously don't think humans are meant to survive in those sort of conditions.

I was back in DC a few weeks ago for work, and actually got to see a bit of the city this time.  The weather was absolutely beautiful for the first two days, and I was loving getting up for an early morning run down to the Mall and past all of the wonderful monuments.  Then the weather flipped to being disgustigly hot and sticky, and I realised that there is really only about four months of the year when I would be able to tolerate living in Washington, the rest of the time (summer and winter) it is just ghastly.

It is a strange town though, in terms of racial segregation.  It has one of the largest black populations of any city in the US, but you would never know that if you just stayed in the NW quarter, which is where most of the attractions, hotels, embassies etc. are.  The other three quarters are primarily black, with very few white residents (or so I'm told - I was advised not to venture outside of the NW, as DC also has one of the highest rates of gun crimes in the US).  I have to admit that if I ever did live in DC I would probably stick to the NW too - Georgetown, Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle are all top of my list.

Krista and I were planning to see John Butler Trio at the 9.30 Club when we got in on Wednesday night, but we got all the way down there to find the show was entirely sold out.  I didn't know whether to be disappointed for myself for missing it, or happy for them for getting such a good turn out, especially since Krista's friend Nat, who drove us down there, is a total music snob and had been entirely disparaging about JBT ('fucking mediocre Jack Johnson-esque shit').  At least we had Nat there to drive us back, because if we had wasted $20 on cabs I would have been even more disappointed.

Instead we got to drink G&Ts in the bar of our hotel, Hotel Rouge, across the street from the Embassy, and catch up with Krista's college boyfriend, who is exactly what I imagined her college boyfriend would be like.  The theme of Hotel Rouge is RED.  Everything is RED.  Except for the leopard print carpet in the hallways, and the tiger print bathrobes.  Somehow it managed to avoid verging on love hotel territory, and was kind of a nice change from bland beige brand name hotel rooms.  Apparently on weekend mornings, in keeping with the red theme, they have a free bloody mary and cold pepperoni pizza brunch.  It would have been perfect for soaking up a U Street hangover, but sadly I missed out on it.

Funnily enough, I was actually in TJ on May 5, but couldn't see any evidence of Cinco de Mayo celebrations whatsoever.  Back in San Diego, festivities were in full swing, with a huge fiesta in Old Town.  There was bands playing mariachi, cumbia, rancheros and more, and ballet folklorico groups performing dances from many different regions in Mexico.  There was a huge turnout from across the community - Mexicans, first/second/third generation Mexican-Americans, and plenty of gringos as well.  Granted most of the SDSU frat boys probably just saw it as a good excuse to get drunk, right up there with St Patrick's Day, (although I'll take Don Julio and Sol over Guinness and green beer any day of the week) and wouldn't have had any idea what it was all about.

As for me, I couldn't have been happier just lying on the grass in the sun and watching the performances.  What a perfect afternoon.

While in San Diego I couldn't resist at least dipping my toe in Mexico, so despite all the horror stories I have heard about Tijuana (even from friends of mine who are from Tijuana), I jumped on the trolley down to San Ysidro on Saturday morning.  

Tijuana is very ordinary.  That's about the nicest thing I can say.  I feel sorry for people who visit TJ and think that it is Mexico.  Of course, it is Mexico, but a particularly unattractive version of Mexico, and only a very tiny expression of everything that Mexico has to offer.   I guess border towns are just never very nice places, except of course for my beloved Pyjama Town in Portugal, which will always rock.