MInneapolis, so far

Greeted at our hostel by a young man we called "beard-o", or alternatively "Alex." We later learned his name is actually Charlie. The welcome sign had, in just as big font, "Check out time is 11am. If you are here after 11am, you will be charged for an additional night." He brought our sheets up to our room, tossed them on the bed and said, "They might not be the right size. If not, just come and let me know." They weren't. We didn't.

Then off to the car to get our bags. While transporting them into the hostel, a man stops his car and asks:
Him: Are you OK? What happened?
Us: Um... we're taking our luggage out of the car.
Him: Are you sure you're OK? You're carrying clothes!
Us: Um, yes we're sure.
Him: Well, be careful. There are bad people around. Crack heads.
Us: Um, OK. Thanks for the heads up.

So we asked Beard-o/Alex about it and he said that the crack heads were fine. They just want change and cigarettes. We also interrupted his American Beauty watching to ask for a restaurant recommendation. He suggested a pan-asian place called Gangchen. We promptly forgot the name, so when we were walking toward it and not sure if we had gone the right way we asked Lee Ann from CVS whether we were on the right track to the pan-Asian place. She said, well, I don't know of an Asian place that way, but there are some restaurants down the other way. OK, well do you have a recommendation? Yeah, well, there's this other place right down here called Gangchen. It's Asian. We managed not to laugh directly in her face.

Then while at Gangchen, a woman named Carl managed to fall off her barstool and Amy, being the good nurse that she is, went to check her basic neural function in case she had had a seizure or something. Diagnosis? Drunkenness.