Reviews & Comments
Minnesota, MN
It's cold up here! -
2/28/2010I grew up in the cold state of Minnesota and lived there until I was 30 years old. I lived in various places within the twin cities metro area and loved the people, theatre, coffee shops, offbeat bars and clubs and autumn! I always struggled however with the uninspiring landscape, preferring mountains to the great plains, I never took up cross country skiing, ice skating or snow mobiling, so mostly just hibernated during the long cold winters. It really did take some effort for me to want to go outside, scrape off my windshield and warm up the car just to go out to a movie or even to work out in an indoor health club....boring. So I, like many Minnesotans took refuge in comfort foods and always had quite a bit of winter fat on me. Summers can be very nice but again I found myself wanting to be indoors when the humidity and mosquitos got to me. I still miss the people of Minnesota, they are very down to earth and incredibly welcoming. My friends were highly educated, politically active, open minded, fun and some even a bit quirky. I like the liberal mindedness of the metro area and the art and gay community add a lot of character, sophistication, and enlightenment to the state. Golden Valley has the Perpich Center for the Arts, a very successful public arts high school, Mendota Heights has two excellent private academies; the St Paul academy for boys and Visitation for girls, and Minnetonka, Edina, Wayzata, Woodbury, Mahtomedi, Stillwater, Apple Valley, Eden Prairie, St Louis Park and other areas have excellent public schools. MN is also one of the most educated states in the U.S. There are numerous outstanding colleges and universities including Macalester, Hamline, St Catherines, St Olaf, Carleton, St Thomas, and the U of MN system. All that said, I still miss my family and college friends but I need an outdoor lifestyle. I'm not partial to winter sports and don't much like the snow, so it's milder climate states for me. I loved living in Seattle, WA as a single person renting but now I am married with a son and cannot afford the cost of housing in Seattle. We live in the UK at present and will be relocating back to the U.S. sometime in the near future but my hometown of MN just isn't in the stars for us. But if you like the snow, it's a great place to live and a great place to raise your kids. My only caution is the high cost of living due to high taxes across the board. If you add up the income, property and sales taxes, MN is a fairly expensive place t