Aaaah, Minneapolis
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12/9/2005
I moved up here a little over 2 years ago after a number of years in the mid-atlantic region. It's really a lovely city during the warm weather months. Access to parks, bike trails, lakes, and all sorts of outdoor activities. An mucho mucho foliage, it's an arborist's dream. There is a prevailing progressive attitude. Plenty of hippie-dippy types & co-ops aplenty. Lots of good art, music, theater. I'd been a fan of the city for years, visiting friends and family, they all seem to love it.
Now comes the HARSH REALITY....it's freezing. I mean FREEZING!!!! Each morning for the last 2 weeks I've awoken to 4 degree highs. No BS. This (winter) lasts an easy 5 months and is illustraited by gray slushy frozen snow everywhere, on the sides of the roads, on the sidewalks. To get around the weather the city installed a Sky-way, a kind of downtown habitrail from building to building. Some people are invigorated by the winter, they go ice fishing, skiing, etc. Personally, come April, I'm moving back east. I can't take the cold on top of the darkness of the winter months. I was used to riding my motorcycle 10 months a year, now it's painful (literally) to go outside. And while I give way high marks to the city as a whole, a beautiful place, it's just too much.
I know this is kinda long, but two other quick things to mention: 1: this is not a good city to be in as a single 30 year old man. Men outnumber women here, socially it's really clique-ish. 2: Good non-corporate jobs are getting really hard to come by. This might be true elsewhere, and if working for Target, Best Buy, or Medtronic are your dish, then there you go. Otherwise you have to be in advertising/marketing/web. It's still a saturated market.
Abhd | Minneapolis, MN