I drove MYSELF up to North St. Paul this last weekend to meet Dave's parents and I didn't kill anyone or hurt my car or even panic or CRY! Granted I drove early in the morning and borrowed Deedee's Garmin GPS. I have to say, that GPS made all the difference in the world and I will be getting one with my next paycheck! Everything went so well and I met and enjoyed myself with his parents, one of his older brothers, and his younger sister and her family. Dave said I "passed the family test." I was SO nervous but it went very well and I'm so glad I made the trip!
We went to go see the
King Tut exhibition at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul. It was a fascinating exhibit and something I've always wanted to see! Of course pictures and cell phones were not allowed in the exhibit (they even made me spit out my gum!) but it was well worth the price of admission. One of the most interesting things we learned was that King Tut is the ONLY Egyptian Pharaoh who still rests in his original tomb in the Valley Of The Kings. He now has a fancy nitrogen filled chamber for preservation purposes. The mummy they had on display was his replica mummy because his
actual mummy has never traveled outside of Egypt. I did not know that! We were talking about that because I know the original statue of Nefertiti is in a museum in Berlin (because all the museums in the world with priceless Egyptian artifacts basically STOLE them--let's face it) and my parents and sister and brother in law saw it 2 years ago. They'd learned at that time that Egypt was opening a new museum and had requested borrowing Nefertiti for the grand opening and Berlin wouldn't send it citing, "She is too fragile to survive the trip." I think Berlin is just afraid they'll never get her back which is I'm sure why Egypt won't lend out King Tut's
actual mummy. Dave and I were joking to each other the entire time about
Steve Martin's version of King Tut. We kept telling each other that "he's my favorite honky." And the funniest thing he said to me all day was when we were going through the gift shop portion and he blandly said to me, "You know he was buried with a donkey. They didn't mention that in the exhibit." He's a keeper! "He gave his life for tourism." ;) My favorite part of the museum was this exhibit about natural dyes and different types of mordants! I love yarn!
We roamed through the rest of the museum which was very kid-friendly. I loved the view of the Mississippi from the top deck. We enjoyed typical February weather and it was just so picturesque! Dave kept referring to the river as "The Old Man."
We ate lunch at Cossetta's in St. Paul which was a field trip in and of itself! It reminded me of Victoria's in Rochester but it was set up more like a lunch counter because you went through the line with a tray and it was all disposable dishes and cans of pop. The prices were awesome because you weren't paying for wait staff or dish washing and everything was DELICIOUS! I had the chicken marsala and I didn't want my meal to end! Num Num!!!
My FAVORITE part had to be the market that was attached to the restaurant! Look at all those beautiful artisan breads! I just wanted to get to some yeast and BAKE when I saw this!!! They also sold a large selection of bee-YEW-tiful
Maiolica pottery! I remember seeing and coveting it when I was in Italy but I never bought any because I knew I'd never get it home intact.
They had a lovely and VERY WELL STOCKED deli in the market portion of the restaurant! Look at all the hams and sausages and cheeses!
They had items that were cut off and sold by weight and individual units of things. I could have died and gone to heaven in there!
They also had the largest selection of olive oils I'd ever seen together in one place! I apologize that my pictures are so blurry but I took these photos without a flash. Normally when I try to take pictures in places like this, I get yelled at! These are my surreptitious SPY photos!
The same thing goes for this blurry photo of canned crushed tomatoes! I'd never SEEN so many varieties before! I bought 2 cans with pretty labels and they were $2ish each which is not bad considering I can get Wal-Mart cans at 97c each. I'm ashamed to say that I wanted them for the labels! Martha had a feature where she re-used the cans for pencil holders or flower vases. I'm shameless.
Dave then drove me to
Sandeen's which is a Scandinavian gift shop on White Bear Avenue. I have been to Ingebretson's but this was a new shop to me. My mom was familiar with this shop because she'd ordered Hardanger fabric from them but they don't have a catalog and I couldn't find a website for them. They seemed to be a "Mom and Pop" type of establishment and the business seems to be attached to their home. I had a good little visit with the proprietor but I didn't buy anything. They had Norsk, Svensk, Dansk, og Finsk items for sale including Norwegian Bunad silver and several scandinavian cooking items. I wonder if they weren't going out of business because they had several sales on. Lovely store.
AND THEN....Dave took me to The Yarnery on Grand Avenue! Grand Avenue is an upscale shopping district in St. Paul where several of the businesses are in old houses. I have been following them on
their blog for several months now and I was absolutely THRILLED to be there in person! I didn't take any pictures of the shop itself because somehow my camera had fallen out of my purse onto the floor of the car and we didn't notice it was missing until we got there. They stocked any and all of my favorite brands including KAUNI yarn!!! I even told them that I'd never seen that for sale in the US and that Mom and I had traveled to Estonia TWICE to get that yarn! I came away with these purchases and I was worried about my camera (I wasn't sure if I'd set it down when I paid at Cossetta's and forgotten it or dropped it or whatever) but we had to park in the parking ramp because it was a busy Saturday shopping day. Would you believe that the time it took to park, walk to the store, ogle at the yarn, pay at the store, and then return the car and leave took less than 30 minutes!?! Dave kept saying he'd go back to the car to check and I said, "No, I'll hurry." And he actually SAID to me, "I don't want you to have to hurry in the yarn shop." Did I mention that he is a keeper? :)
I am so mad! I bought this lovely skein of Unisono which is a German brand of soft machine washable merino wool sock yarn. I paid almost $24 for it at Quality Sewing Center in Rochester and I snapped it up because it was such a pretty "autumn mix" colorway...in the skein.
I started knitting them and just HATED how they knit up and how the colors changed! This skein had 300 meters and I thought I would be A-OK but I ended up running out of yarn when it came time to finish the toe on the second sock. Can you tell where I substituted replacement yarn? That LEMON YELLOW toe is washable sock yarn left over from Lisa's Lello birthday socks this year. I have to blame myself though because I knit 7 inch cuffs on both of these socks because I like a longer sock but if I'd stuck to the standard 6 inch cuff, I would have had enough yarn to finish them properly. That still wouldn't change the fact that I hated the way this yarn knit up. I am going to start doing that with variegated yarns: take a picture of it when it is still in the skein and then take a picture of the finished item.
