Pyro's Life

Greetings from the Twin Cities

NP - Make Damn Sure
by Taking Back Sunday

Wow, its been a while hasn't it? (seems like I tend to post that every single time i post a blog, but what the hell :) ). Currently, I'm in the Marriott City Center hotel in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota looking over the city. It has been overcast the majority of the time here, kind of a 'gray' feeling. Yet, despite the feeling of being overcast all the time, the city feels alive. There's an incredible sense of freedom in besing able to come and go as I please; go where I want as I please, anytime I please. "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile" isn't a relevant phrase to me. Sometimes an inch is all we need when we're living in the opressed society/culture that is 'Utah'.

The first day was an amazingly great introduction to the city. I woke up around eight, grabbed some food, hopped on the blessing that is 'Mapquest.com' and found directions to Twin Town Guitars (www.twintown.com). With my destination in mind and my map scribbled out onto the back of a piece of scratch paper, I headed out.

Apparently, somewhere along the beginning of my path, I missed Hennepin Avenue (for those of you who know Minneapolis at all, missing Hennepin is one of those 'how the hell can you miss something right infront of you' kind of things). After walking for about a mile in the wrong direction, I realized where I was and turned around. The rest of the trip there wasn't terribly difficult to get to, I just prayed (alot) that I'd actually find this place. After about four miles of walking, I finally found it.

It's an interesting feeling you get when you're walking downtown in a new city; Somewhere between adventure and curiosity is the feeling of independence. Somewhat of a foreign feeling, "Here's the day, use it however you want to" is something totally new to me. More specific directions are given at home, with feelings of obligation towards certain responcibilities such as school, work, family, friends. I left my cell phone at home and took my sisters for this trip, mostly because my cell phone was broken; but it was nice to get away from all the crazy drama that's going on back home (somewhat) and start a new life in a foreign place.

This is the feeling that I'm sure we've all strived to find. Start life over, leave everything you know behind and actually take controll of your life.

God, its amazing.

Anyways, back to my escapade; after heading two miles down Lynndale Ave; I finally find Twin Town Guitars. Everyone there was extremely awesome and totally willing to work with me. I played around with effects for probably a good hour before finally spending way too much money and buying a 'ZVexSuper Duper 2 in 1' pedal and a 'ZVex Nano' guitar amplifier head (1/2 watt of tube power able to power a 4x12 cabinet? Too amazing to pass up, great tone).

Took my new gear and, with a smile, started my 4 mile treck back home.

Took a ton of pictures during this whole period of time, I'm pretty happy with them; I think I captured the feeling of Minneapolis the way I depict it fairly well.

It's funny, there's people absolutely everywhere, yet you can still totally feel alone; It really isn't a 'bad' kind of alone either. Everyone seems to know exactly what they're doing and everyone (for the most part) minds their own business. It's funny to look into a blank face of someone and realize that they all have problems, lives, obligations, families, struggles, beliefs, ect. It's just mind boggling to realize that none of us are 'just another person', we're all individuals. Amazing.

Got back and Felicia and I headed to Applebees for lunch then proceeded to exploring the city. Just sort of wandered around for the most part, stopped at a Target and I saw the coolest thing ever.

Ok, so the Target in Minneapolis (at least downtown) has two levels, accessable by an escalator. The amazing thing; they actually have an escalator for the SHOPPING CARTS. Is that not amazing?

We grabbed an empty shopping cart and took it up and down the escalator a few times. Man, how amazing...

Picked up Hawthorne Heights latest CD 'If Only You Were Lonely' and then headed back to our hotel rooms.

Hung around till about six, then headed to McCormick and Schmick's; which is THE most expensive resteraunt I have ever been to. I think our bill for the 14 of us was about 700 dollars by the end of the evening. Thank heavens Wells Fargo was paying for it.

I had Blue Marlin from Hawaii. Spiffy eh?

Left the resteraunt and went to go shoot some pool. I did very, very, very bad; but oh well I guess. I'm not the pool player I used to be (Erin, I promise I let you win when we went on our date :) ). After that, Dan made me sing Kareoke. So, I sang Miami by Counting Crows for about 40 drunk people. It was fun regardless :).

Went home, watched a movie (I can't for the life of me remember which one...) and went to sleep, totally exhausted.

Day two, woke up and headed to the Mall of America. Took the train for a fairly lengthy ride out to the mall and just read 'The Great Gatsby' the whole way there. There's just something I love about trains, I can't quite identify it. But whatever it is, I love it.

The mall isn't as huge as i built it up to be in my head, but it was pretty freaking huge. First stop was the Apple Store, my iPod Shuffle's headphone jack (not the actual headphones, but the jack on the iPod that you plug them into) had shorted out, which was nothing short of frustrating. I didn't feel like shelling out another $100 bucks for a brand new ipod, so I prayed for a possible repair job that wouldn't cost a ton.

'Have you had the iPod for less then a year?'
'Yes, I bought it in Septe...'
*types in a few things*
'Yep, looks like you bought it September 6th, 2005. Here;'
*throws me a new iPod Shuffle*
'Woah, thanks...'

Yeah, how cool is that? :).

Shopped for a few other things, bought three shirts and a new pair of glasses at Hot Topic (thanks Felicia), bought Amelia the most amazing birthday present ever, and headed home.

On the train ride home, we spotted a cemetary so we decided to get off the train and explore it.

The Cemetary had a very melancholy, solemn feeling to it. All the headstones were exactly the same and stretched on in endless rows (literally, I couldn't see the end in any direction I looked). Thinking that every single headstone represented the life of an individual was mindblowing... their mark they left in life possibly accomplishing nothing more than taking up another plot of earth in a cemetary, or possibly being able to change the world. Individuality is fascinating.

The last day of my little treck, went to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, which was pretty spiffy. Not the most amazing food, but awesome music and it was awesome to be able to see guitars that belonged to the legends hung all over the walls :).

Took a long walk to the Mississippi River, overrated... froze my ass off :).

Tried to find the way back to the hotel via Skyway without much success, got lost a few times but eventually made it back to the hotel.

Went back to the airport, had a long flight home :).

Immediately after getting back, called Erin and went to Tyler's party to hang out with her for a while, which was a blast, it was great to be able to see her again.

-fin-

-me

posted by Pyro128 @ 9:03 AM