Photos of Minneapolis just before it went to shit
To observe the 20th anniversary of my trip to Minneapolis Minnesota USA, here are some photos I took, which show a cleaner and happier place which was not the woke progressive shithole it is today.
I flew in to the Twin Cities in mid 2005, and found their airport quite nice. This was a large display seen upon walking into the main arrivals section.
Here are some shots taken from a moving car. Sorry about the lower quality of the images, but I think they're interesting as they show a different subset of vehicles on the roads than we see today, and because they show a bygone version of Minneapolis in the background.
The trip was a memorable one, but some of the circumstances were pretty emotional, traumatic, and/or uncomfortable. I haven't thought about it in detail much in the past 2 decades. These photos have been kicking around and I've meant to post them, but I'm not really sure why. But doing so is triggering some memories and feelings, no doubt about that.
Oh yeah, the river. I recall sitting down by the water, the old city center all around. Lots of cement, lots of brick, lots of metal. Had lunch in an authentic Italian place around the corner, big plates of pasta, lots of bread.
This outing was closer to the end of my visit there. Lots of driving. The place has a ton of highways. More highways and roads than places to go.
I remember a bit of culture shock, being from Canada. It's not like MN is very different from most of Canada, compared to some Southern states for example. But there's a different demographic, for one thing. In 2005, we had no black people in Canada, so that was something I really noticed. Lots of Black and Hispanic people... but no Indian, Chinese, or native people (like I'm used to). Also, most people were much larger than I was used to. Like 250 pounders, and those were the thinner ones.
And I got a very fake feeling from just about everything in the USA when I was there. The heeby-jeebees. The creeps. The shivers. Nothing seemed right, normal, healthy, sustainable, or real. It felt so much better when I returned to Canada... but over the years the same sickness has crept in here, too. Now it seems there's nowhere in North America that isn't tainted, phony, doomed. But that's a topic for another time ; )
Not far from my hotel was Mall of America, so we had to check that out. I think it was the last day of my trip, so I was feeling a bit melancholy, but the mall was cool. Saw Johnny Depp's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", had lunch in the massive food court, shopped like a tourist (looked a lot but didn't buy much).
I hear that Sam Goody store is no more. In fact, the whole chain of music shops has closed down, 2000 stores or something. Sign of the times, everybody just buys music on their smart devices now. (If you can call it music!)
I wanted to share this handful of photos with you. Minneapolis / St. Paul used to be pretty nice. I think it really started falling apart around 2010, and nowadays it's the epicenter of Black Lives Matter, race violence, smash and grab robberies, woke policies, crime, disease, poverty, and degeneracy.
Like the circumstances around my trip 20 years ago, I'll try and remember the good parts of Minneapolis, and not worry too much about the rest.
DRutter
