Iowa: American Ghostland

Okay. I messed up. Originally, I was going to work on this blog entry the first day we arrived in Iowa. Or possibly yesterday, when I walked the streets of Des Moines for the first time. But it didn't happen because, at the end of the day, I was too tired to do so. Ohwell.

Anyway. We're on vacation. As in, we are off work, not at home and are, for the most part, doing things that at least somewhat differ from everyday chores and activities. We are not at a lake cabin of some sort, a resort, or in the woods, hunting. Or fishing. We are not going to bars or casinos either. I guess many wouldn't even refer to what we are doing as vacation, then. Ohwell, again.

We decided to go to Iowa, which made just about everyone laugh their ass off. I am not quite sure why, though. It's just another state and, after all, it's pretty similar to Minnesota. Hell, it's pretty much the same. Corn field here, corn field there. The end.

We stopped in Albert Lea (still in Minnesota). I expected too much from this town, I guess, probably because of its lovely name. There was nothing. By which I mean - nothing. Not a thing. Not a soul. It was lunch time, so we stopped at the only place that looked like it wouldn't literally poison us. This is the wholesome meal we had (yes, there was a Happy Meal involved and yes, I got to keep the bucket):

Soon enough, we made it to Ames. Actually, stopping in Ames was absolutely random. We had no clue what it was, yet it turned out to be a pretty interesting town. It's the home of The Cyclones, which I guess are some team belonging to Iowa State University. Rugby, I bet. (Yes, rugby. Football is the thing played with your feet.) Go, Cyclones, I guess. They're also really into fraternities and sororities, it seemed. They also have weird hula-swans.

Next stop - Des Moines. Nice looking city: a few skyscrapers, some skywalks... looked promising. It was pretty easy to figure out how to get around and we pretty much just stumbled upon the hotel we were supposed to stay in. The room was the size of an average European apartment, with a king bed, which resembled a smaller stadium. We even had a kitchenette. This was a gift from Derek's parents, for our birthdays. The two of us are too cheap for this kind of luxury. We stayed at Renaissance Savory, right downtown. The room was one of those with a view:

Night time, with a lovely shadow of my beautiful self.

And, given that all the literature was in its right place... we hoped for a good, peaceful night:

The room was really good, though. Comfortable bed, functioning bathroom. What else does one need, anyway? The deal came with no breakfast, so I went hunting in the morning. There was a bakery down the street, but it didn't open until eleven (to make it even worse, it closes at two in the afternoon). Actually, this is where I learned that Iowa, or at least Des Moines, was a ghost town. Beautiful buildings, nice streets and nobody to use them. Yup. I left the hotel at ten in the morning, came back around noon and saw maybe ten people during my walk. There were plenty of stores, but most were closed. They either don't care to unlock their doors on Mondays, or they start sometime late. Or close at four or five. Weird. We didn't see many people during their rush hour either. So, yeah, I guess Iowans are actually ghosts and they built their entire state for random visitors.The weather was perfect, though. High seventies, or, for my dearest Europeans - around 25 degrees Celsius. I actually got somewhat sunburnt.

Things to see in Des Moines? Downtown, for sure. It's interesting. They have a beautiful modern public library. They have a sculpture garden, somewhat smaller in size than the one in Minneapolis, but just as interesting and neat. Actually, it seems they both have the same artists' stuff on display.

 

 

There's an area called East Village, which they consider to be historic and awesome. It was cute, but at the same time, it was pretty dead, too. That's where I encountered closed stores and weird working hours. Too bad. 

Then they have food. It took some effort to pick the restaurants we wanted to go to. The first night, we ate at Centro. Italian. It looked good, the staff knew what they were doing (unlike the majority of waiters and waitresses in Mankato) and the food was pretty damn good for something so simple as random Italian. I was pleased to see that they left the pretentious part out of the equation. No beds of arugula caught my eye and I have to admit this was more than enough for me to like the place. Derek ate some salmon, I ate some parmesan encrusted aubergine with salsa and spaghetti. Before that, we shared a bowl of tomato bisque. Yup. It was that simple.

On Monday evening, we chose Django, owned by the same guy who has Centro, as well as South Union Bread (where we ate lunch the same day). Yup. Three different meals, three different places, one owner. And we had no clue beforehand. Django is also downtown and also looks pretty damn good. Plain and simple, yet classy. Again, the staff knew how to serve the meals, when to pick up the plates or simply pour more water into our glasses (yup, glasses, as in cups made of glass, something that a great deal of Mankato eateries have yet to discover and implement). The food was even better than what we had at Centro. Tomato-artichoke bisque to begin with, then some tilapia (with pistachios!) and mashed potatoes with pickled red cabbage for me and homemade goat cheese&spinach ravioli for Derek. They also had some cheese platers to gnaw on, so we gnawed. Manchego from Spain, homemade crackers and fig marmelade. Yup, good stuff. Would have been an A+ had it come on a wooden cutting board. This way, dear Frenchies, it's just a plain A.

Looks like iPad vine lists are the shit these days. Too bad we don't drink, I guess.

We left Des Moines on Tuesday afternoon, or actually, right at noon. The original plan was to visit Omaha, Nebraska, but, luckily, we changed our plans. I googled it on Monday night one more time and decided it looked too ugly, as well as boring. If that isn't true, well, dear Omaha, you've got to thank this picture. It made me not want to go there. (Okay, I have to admit that I failed to find any articles or something similar that could or would have convinced me to drag my ass there either.)

Kansas City won our today's lottery. It seemed big, it was close enough and they had an affordable hotel room available in the area we wanted to be in. And I guess the Wikipedia entry for KC did a better job than the one for Omaha. They included a better photo, too.

So that's where we went. And on our way out, we stopped at a bakery. Yup. A real bakery. Like those at home. At home home, there, across the ocean. We googled this one, as well and it looked promising, but I trust nothing and nobody before I see it. This was, for sure, worth seeing. It's almost worth going back to Des Moines for. The atmosphere, the smell, the prices and the variety of baked goods.... ohyes. I had bread today, that I did not bake myself, for the first time since October of last year, in Zagreb. Gorgeous.

Off to Missouri we went.