The Best Grad School Perk - Brady

Maybe my favorite thing about being a graduate student is being able to work wherever and whenever I want. That's really not much of an exaggeration. Now that classes are over I have to be on campus for meetings occasionally, but I could probably move to Australia and do just fine. It's a very sweet deal.

I took full advantage this past Monday and Tuesday. Kevin did some depositions in Minneapolis, and his firm pays for his transportation, hotel room, and meals. It's really a bargain for me to come, so since we're the most opportunistic travelers I know, we went for it.

We arrived Sunday night and had a really memorable meal at a restaurant called W.A. Frost. It had one of the most beautiful outdoor patios I've ever seen. The food is also mostly locally grown/raised, and it's vegetarian friendly. Our dinner there was one of my favorites, ever, anywhere we've been.





Monday morning we went for a run on the "greenway" located conveniently behind our hotel. Apparently, they call this bike trail the "hipster highway." Young, bike-riding Minneapolans use it to commute to work. Kevin and I ran about 2.5 miles (down for a quick view of the Mississippi) and back. Then he headed off to his meetings while I worked away in the hotel room.





After a few hours I took the hotel shuttle downtown and met Kev for a quick Potbelly sandwich for lunch. Then I headed to the Minneapolis Public Library to work for the afternoon. The building is absolutely gorgeous.





But finding a workspace with an outlet (my ancient computer has no battery power of its own anymore) and reliable internet connection was almost impossible. I think I tried 5 different work stations in the library. No luck. All of the outlets were broken. So I headed to the coffee shop downstairs. Again, I had lots of trouble finding outlets. Once I did, I bought a coffee and settled in...only to be told by the guy behind the counter that getting online was almost impossible in the store. Frustration overdrive.

BUT...we have to look on the bright side when we're lucky enough to be in a fun new city, don't we? When Kevin was done for the day, we headed to Uptown Cafeteria and Support Group (that's really its name) for happy hour and sat on their sunny roofdeck. This was our view.





Then we headed out to another fantastic dinner at Red Stag Supper Club. More good, local veggies. More good, local beer.





And we followed THAT up with some lounge singing (we actually did some of the singing...) at a nearly empty bar that we LOVE called Nye's Polonaise Room. When you walk into this place you feel like you've gone back in time fifty years.

Tuesday brought another run, this time the other direction on the greenway, to Lake Calhoun. We saw some skinny-dippers...that was exciting...and then got cleaned up for the day. I rode downtown with Kevin and hopped from coffee shop to coffee shop in search of the elusive outlet + dependable internet connection combo. I finally gave up on finding a cute local place and just went to Starbucks. I have never been so grateful for a chain. Good, fast service. Good coffee. Plenty of seating. Plenty of plug-ins. A connection that didn't start and stop on me. I got more work done during those four hours than I did all of the other hours we were in town.

We fit in a walk over the Mississippi and one last dinner - at another great place called Spoon River - before our 8 p.m. flight.








I can't believe this is my work life.