Minneapolis Meetup Recap and Chicago Meetup Inception

Last night I attended the Minneapolis Steemit meetup hosted by Hive account@mada . It was such a blast, I don't want to wait any longer to get together a Chicago meetup! So before I tell you all about the awesome, but exhausting experience I had yesterday, I would love to gauge interest on a Chicago meetup. Depending on how many people are interested, I will reserve a small bar or catering room for us. If anyone has recommendations of places that they would love to hang out with fellow creative minds, let me know! Feel free to comment on this thread, email me at anthonyjerrigo@gmail.com , or message me on Steemit chat anthonyjerrigo to give me recommendations or express interest.

A ROCKY START

My girlfriend, Michelle, and I stayed up all Sunday night just to make sure we would be downtown Chicago by 0600 on Monday to catch our bus to Minneapolis. Our plan was to pass out the moment we got on the bus... but we were a little bold in thinking this would happen. I ended up getting terrible motion sickness from the ride and was only able to get small bursts of rest. Michelle barely slept at all. We traveled from Chicago, through Milwaukee, Madison, St. Paul, and eventually arrived in Minneapolis. In and out of sleep, I did enjoy observing the acres and acres of open grass and farmland throughout the drive...

and one of the few moments Michelle slept...

ARRIVAL

We arrived in Minneapolis with a few hours to kill before the meetup so we walked around and took in the city.

Its unique architecture,

beautiful murals,

creative restaurants,

strange sculptures,

cute shops,

and abnormally large amount of strip clubs... :p

A BUSY DAY AT THE OFFICE

The Office was a fun workplace themed bar and grill.

With power outlets and wifi, our waitress said a lot of people will come and work here throughout the day.

Our food was served on an old newspaper print and was absolutely delicious! I highly recommend this place.

A SHORT DETOUR

Jeromeo is a small shop near Target Field that sells a wide variety of art and sculptures. Here's just a sample of the great stuff you can find here:

This last one is my favorite

MEETUP

As I already mentioned, the meetup was awesome. Michelle and I were only able to stay an hour before heading back to catch our return bus, but the trip was definitely worth it. You can read about the meetup from the host himself here: https://steemit.com/meetup/@mada/how-to-first-minneapolis-steemit-meetup

While I wasn't able to hang around long, failed to notice my phone's memory filled (preventing the many photos I took of Hive account@mada 's beautiful house and his wonderful guests from saving), and had to travel more than 20 hours in a 27 hour window; I learned a lot about Steemit and met some really amazing people. Some, have been around since Steemit's beginning, some were creating Steemit accounts at the meetup! Here is a list of just some of the people that I met at the meetup. I encourage you all to check out their posts, there's a lot of really creative stuff in here: Hive account@darkb4dawn Hive account@mada Hive account@zachnewell Hive account@spaceballoon Hive account@velveteendream Hive account@rashard4 Hive account@dougscrib Hive account@moony Hive account@greatdabu Hive account@kommienezuspadt Hive account@fox Hive account@lovejoy

I'm confident that I have not seen the last of these new friends. I hope I am able to get to know all of them better over the next few months and will certainly be at future Minnesota meetups. In the mean time, anyone in the Chicago area, let me know if you are interested in giving our own meetup a go. I know forming these relationships is what Steemit is really about :)

Talk to you soon,
Anthony