Mall of America, Minneapolis

HAPPY 8th BIRTHDAY KAITLIN!

Sunshine lollipops and rainbows everywhere! Today, Jon and I woke up at 8:15 am to get our free continental breakfast. They had donuts, bread, cereal and waffle batter to make waffles. We went back to sleep and officially woke up at 10:00 am. We arrived at Mall of America at around 11:20am. The mall had 3 levels, one of which is where the movie theatre was. This is the largest mall in America, containing 520 stores, 50 restaurants, a theme park (Nickelodeon Universe) and an aquarium. The theme park was very cute and very child-oriented. Of course, Jon wanted to go on the rides but he was too cheap to pay. We’ll also be going to Six Flags which is a roller coaster filled park quite soon.

The mall is divided into North, East, South and West quadrants. The major department stores included Sears, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. There were several Gap stores e.g. Gap Women, Gap maternity, Gap, Gap Body, Gap Kids and Gap baby. There were also several Caribou Coffee stores which Jon thinks is the American version of Tim Horton’s.

When Jon and I went into Abercrombie and Fitch, we saw was seems to be smoke coming from a vent. It was perfume that was being sprayed into the store. Jon kept on saying he was having a lung arrhythmia because he was suffocating from the fumes. It was quite stinky. As we walked into Gilly Hicks Sydney, a lingerie store from the Abercrombie family, the salesperson standing by the door was literally shouting at us. She was telling us about the sales and so forth but she was speaking so loudly it was disturbing. Jon had the idea of saying GOOD BYE really loudly as we left but he didn’t get a chance to as she was talking to other customers. Ha ha! I bought a navy tank top at Hollister for $8. Jon bought socks at Marshall’s for $8 as well. We also bought a Lindt Amarena Cherry Creme. It’s a new chocolate bar with a cherry crème filling. I have never seen this in Vancouver and I would bring it back but this needs to be kept no higher than room temperature which is not possible. We’ll let you know how it tastes.

For lunch, we ate at Auntie Anne’s Pretzel. They had a deal where if you bought 3 items, you would get 1 free. So we bought 2 hot dog pretzels, an almond pretzel and Jon’s favourite pretzel sticks with cheese dip. The total came to $10.

We came across a store called MagiQuest. It is an interactive wizard game. You walk around with a wand and you point it at the screens to kill dragons and perform magic spells. It was an interesting idea. There was also another store called A.C.E.S. Flight simulation where you pay $29.95 for 30 minutes in a mock aircraft. You are fighting people in the air in the plane and it simulates that experience.
We found out that there is no tax on clothes and shoes here. Pretty cool!

After we left Mall of America, we drove to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. We saw a large spoon with a cherry as well as others. As Jon was driving on the freeway, he kept on getting lost because of all the construction. Sometimes, the exits would be blocked so we couldn’t leave the freeway. Other times, the freeway splits off into left and right and his GPS is not that clear on which lane to stay in. We
found our way eventually.

We bought groceries at Cub Foods. Food there is quite cheap. We bought grapes for 78 cents/ lb. Bananas for 48 cents/ lb. Shredded cheese (2 cups) for $1.99. We’ll be making pasta tonight with Caesar salad. We’ll also finish watching Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Rings.

Good Night!