A great place to live, but....

Harry has always said that Minneapolis is a great place to live but not a great place to visit. I realized this weekend that he may be right. Minneapolis is a nice city for sure but it is not a city where if you listed your condo on "housetrade.com" would you expect to find your inbox flooded with enquiry emails. Especially not inquiries from people looking to house swap for a week or two from the cities in Europe I would like to visit, namely the cities of Venice, Florence or Lisbon. No, I'm afraid that Minneapolis would not be on the list of must seen cities of the world for those who presently live in one of those beautiful places. Minneapolis does have it's quiet charm however, at least for me.

On Sunday Harry and I drove over to a neighborhood in Minneapolis called Linden Hills where I spent 27 years of my life. We bought fresh roasted African coffee at the Dunn Brothers coffee shop and then went to Lake Harriet, pictured above, to walk and have an ice cream at the band shell. I have probably walked or biked around this lake several hundred times during the quarter century plus I lived in the neighborhood. I used to say that I wanted my ashes poured into the lake Harriet someday. (now that's really loving a lake) I remember watching the pictured band shell being built, the 5th one the lake has seen over the years. The first band shell was built in the 1880's. One burned down and another flew into the lake thanks to a tornado, the others were torn down. I cross country skied around the lake watching the construction of the present band shell during a very cold winter back in January and February of 1984. I remember walking across the snow covered Lake Harriet with my ex-husband when I was several months pregnant in the moonlight hoping the ice was not going to give way. I fondly remember my daughter's 7th birthday party as she got to drive (with help from the captain) the big paddle boat around the lake with her friends watching and then afterwards all the birthday party girls got on the old restored trolley car to ride the tracks to nearby Lake Calhoun.

This neighborhood will forever have a huge place in my heart. On Sunday as we drove through Linden Hills on our way to the lake when Harry suddenly took a turn down our old street, Abbott Avenue, where I had lived for those 27 years in the same house. The house was built in 1904 and Harry and I got married in the house in December '04 during it's 100th anniversary year. I brought Alexis home from the hospital to that house in 198o. She left for college in 1999 having spent her entire childhood in the house.

The family who bought the house four years ago have three little girls. I knew the house was meant for them as I too had watched my three little girls grow up in the house. Katie and Beth lived next door to us on Abbott. The girls spent many happy days and nights at our house. Having always wanted more children these wonderful girls became my adopted daughters. Then and now it was and is the perfect house for three little girls. I finished off the attic long after my little girls had moved away but now three new little girls have their playroom in the attic. My three girls had their Abbott Ave. newspaper office in the unfinished attic during their elementary school summers and they never complained that the attic floor boards were not very safe to walk on and the walls unfinished.

In the trunk of my car I had been carrying around for years the hammock we used to have on the front porch which I had always meant to give to the new family. I told Harry we should stop on Sunday when we drove past as the family was out in the yard and we could give them the hammock. The old house has seen four owners now and the new owners, Laurie and Dave, have made extensive renovations to the house and gardens. They took us on a tour of what they had done and it was a fantastic thrill to see the changes.

Some of the renovations I had always dreamed of doing, but could not afford to do, were now done. There were things they didn't change too during the renovations. The old claw foot bath tub my ex-husband and I found somewhere and put into the house and the new sink Harry installed were still in the house and seeing them made us smile. Harry proudly showed Dave where you could still see where he had painstakingly patched a ceiling in one of the bedrooms. The french doors off the dinning room to the back garden I had always dreamed of putting in were now in place. Even the attic, which my dear brother-in-law, Dario, painstakingly painted in Harry's selection of four different shades of purple was as we left it. As we toured the the house I remembered the day when my sister and my nieces Andrea and Adri, moved in with me having to leave Colombia due to the violence and kidnappings. My heating bill went through the roof that year trying to keep the Colombians warm. Dave told us that he floods the big back yard every year now so his girls, who all play hockey, can skate. The two foot angel statue my friends Pat and Renee brought me for the the grotto in the garden after my mother died in '97 is still there too. I called the angel, Lily, after my mom and I thought that Angel Lily must enjoy watching the neighborhood hockey games every winter.

So yes, Minneapolis may not have much in the line of great beauty, interesting history or good climate that would make it high on any one's must see cities list, but for me, Minneapolis has lots of cherished memories. It has a lovely old house in the lovely old neighborhood of Linden Hills. I still want to see Lisbon, and Venice and Florence before my ashes are dumped in Lake Harriet so if you know anyone living in one of the above mentioned cities let them know how lovely Minneapolis can be, even if you are just visiting. I feel like a tourist myself this spring after being gone for nearly two years and I am finding the city absolutely beautiful. Maybe Minneapolis would be popular on housetrade.com. after all.