Isn't that why God invented Western Illinois?
Moved to MN. Interesting observations
- Thread starter TrailCy
- Start date
Isn't that why God invented Western Illinois?
This makes me sad. With the closing of Nye's and the atmosphere change of the Gay 90's, that's two of my favorite old haunts that are no longer. I suppose that people like me enjoying the 90's as much as we did caused the downfall of it.
I wouldn't say the 90s is bad by any means...apparently it's packed every weekend. It's just not the 'go to' bar for the gay community because the amount of actual gay people being able to get in is drastically reduced.
If you think it is bad (culture shock) for a Chicago kid to have to come to Iowa City or Ames for 4 years, just imagine what it is like to go to Macomb!
My son's offer package from ISU was about $1500 cheaper per year than the U of MN.
Well the kids were only in town 4 nights of the week and heavily drinking 4 of those 4 nights from what I recall (or don't recall)
I thought it was fun when I transferred to ISU and considerable number of my credits from WIU weren't counted.
Everyone talking about traffic, why is the assumption you're going to live far away from your job?
It has taken me months and I'm still not used to the lines here (could be pandemic-related), I miss the easy in-and-out of everywhere in Iowa, but we haven't experienced much traffic. My commute is 6 minutes and my wife's commute is 5 minutes.
It has taken me months and I'm still not used to the lines here (could be pandemic-related), I miss the easy in-and-out of everywhere in Iowa, but we haven't experienced much traffic. My commute is 6 minutes and my wife's commute is 5 minutes.
I've lived in Minnesota for 30 years and I like it here. Yes, the people aren't quite as warm and inviting as Iowa but few places have people that are. It is tough to get invited into their homes and social circles but they are generally pretty polite, kind, helpful and fun to be around. The people of MN are pretty provincial but I think they are less-so than people in Iowa, Chicago (I don't know enough people from outside Chicagoland to make a statement about Illinois in general), and Wisconsin.
People in the Twin Cities have always taken a lot of pride in the metro area. It's been an easy, clean, organized, generally safe, and efficient place to live with a huge variety of amenities. I do see this pride eroding to a degree over the last couple of years. I think this might be the case in a lot of large metropolitan areas.
Since I've moved here, I feel like the superiority that MN people felt towards people from Iowa has certainly diminished to a great extent.
People in the Twin Cities have always taken a lot of pride in the metro area. It's been an easy, clean, organized, generally safe, and efficient place to live with a huge variety of amenities. I do see this pride eroding to a degree over the last couple of years. I think this might be the case in a lot of large metropolitan areas.
Since I've moved here, I feel like the superiority that MN people felt towards people from Iowa has certainly diminished to a great extent.
I drive about 26 miles to work each way, and I really don't experience much traffic unless it's construction or a snowy day. There are other cities that are far worse.
We live in Champlin so welcome to the neighborhood. We're not too far away. You should like Otsego. It's very new and, although it doesn't have a lot of amenities, it is surrounded by Rogers, St. Michael, Elk River, and Maple Grove so there is plenty of stuff within a very close distance. In Otsego, I highly recommend Pour Wine Bar. The avocado won-tons and black and blue steak bites are terrific appetizers.
We looked in Champlin and Maple Grove but it seemed so far away! Nice new houses and the business area in MG seems to have everything.
One thing I miss about Iowa is knowing you may run into people or knowing that everyone lives relatively close. Up here my coworkers live in a gigantic radius an hour in every direction so it's a lot harder to get to know people outside of work.
As a person who grew up in MN I will give Iowa huge credit for having delicious beef and pork. I did not know what good meat tasted like until I moved down to Iowa and I used to bring back a cooler full everytime I would go home the first 10 yrs or so. The pork chops and steaks I ate going up tasted like shoe leather so I did not eat them (fresh venison though is a different story). My eyes were opened to a wonderful wold of meat moving down here!
Thanks for the suggestion! We are always looking for good food and new places to try!
My guess is as Otsego grows, the amenities will as well. I remember when the 35E/694 junction at Little Canada/Vadnais Heights and White Bear Lake was mainly fields and White Bear Lake was considered "the edge" of the cities.
Because of recent events, I kind of assumed Minneapolis folk wouldn't be so cocky about their city. Sounds like things haven't changed much.
I work in Minneapolis but live in the suburbs so I'm confused as to whether I fall in or out of this "Minneapolis folk" group in your estimation.
I think the arrogance (or protectiveness if you prefer) has been slowly dissipating since Minneapolis lost the informal title of the coolest "not huge" big city to Seattle in the 90's. I believe that Jesse Ventura being elected governor of Minnesota was a direct result of the Seattle music scene overtaking the Prince-inspired Twin Cities music scene during the 90's.