Good morning! I'm going to do something
I've never done before
It's a shopping trip!
I'm going to the biggest mall in the United States,
the Mall of America, and I'll be there for three days.
This suitcase here is empty
but it'll be full on the way back.
Welcome to Minnesota, home to Bob Dylan and Snoopy.
Oh, look at this welcome.
Who can resist something like this?
When I told you guys that this suitcase here is empty, I was not kidding.
No clothes
but I'll take care of that right now.
I'm here actually for a challenge. The folks of Mall of America invited me to come here
during winter, with no coat.
So I came wearing that wool piece that I had before
but that's not gonna protect me from the temperature outside, it's 5 degrees (Fahrenheit) now.
The idea behind this is actually pretty simple
Why not bringing a coat? Because you don't need it.
The temperature at the mall is constantly at 70-72 degrees (Fahrenheit)
and also we're at a hotel that is connected to the mall,
the Radisson Blu; so you don't need to go outside.
I love this idea of not bringing a coat, and I went further
I only brought what I'm wearing.
So in the next days I have 500 dollars to go and spend on everything I'm going to need.
Mall of America, thank you so much for the invitation. It's going to be awesome,
you know, it's every woman's dream.
So I hope you guys come with me to see what I'm going to find over there.
The best thing about shopping in Minnesota
is that here there are no sales taxes on clothes and shoes.
So let me explain to my international friends what that means.
If ever came to the U.S. you know that when you buy something, the price you pay is different
from what you had anticipated; that's because of the sales taxes.
And it varies from city to city, generally between six and ten percent.
So, let's say, if you spend a 1000 dollars, you can expect to pay between 60 and 100 dollars on sales taxes.
That doesn't happen here. This, in addition to the fact that things here in the interior of the country
generally cost less, compared to the east cost or the west cost for example.
And to make things even better they got this coupon book
It is so full of coupons, look at this.
It costs $9.95 but for this amount of coupons you recover your investment pretty easily
Tonight I'm meeting some friends, so priority number one for me now is to choose clothes,
what I'm going to wear, because I got no clothes
and it's even kind of hard when you don't have that much time, I just have two hours now
and you have this many options, 520 stores.
I love my new clothes.
Day 2
Good morning! I woke up early today, came back here to the Mall of America
but I forgot a very important detail. At what time does the mall open?
Right, at ten. I'm here much earlier, stores are closed but the mall is open
and I discovered something very interesting, there's a lot of people here
and they're exercising. I really like it, and it's interesting to see how important
the mall is to the community here in Bloomington.
Now, imagine what a temptation that is, every day you pass here, you see these stores
I guess that I'd like it.
This mall is gigantic! Yesterday I couldn't even see one tenth of it.
Five million square feet.
To give you an idea,
you could fit here seven Yankee stadiums.
Do you know what's most impressive? It's the amount of people that come here, 42 million every year.
To give you another comparison, guess how many people go to the Magic Kingdom in Disney?
Half of that! And the Magic Kingdom is the most visited amusement park in the world.
The best thing to do when you come here is create a list with the shops that you want to see,
look at map where they're located, otherwise you totally get lost.
The mall even has an app actually to help you find the stores, the restaurants and everything.
Now it looks like I'm somewhere else right? No, no, no, no!
There's an amusement park here inside the mall
which actually is the biggest indoor park in the United States.
Guess where I'm going?!
Today it's only this quiet because I'm here on a Tuesday, you should see this on a weekend.
I'm here in front of the Lego store they leave a lot of toys out here for kids to play.
Look at those figures, how amazing!
That's the biggest one in the world.
I'll become a kid again, watch out.
The guitar that belonged to Eric Clapton.
Good morning, today is my last day here.
So I'll take the chance to go downstairs and explore the mall a little bit more
and then in the evening I'm going to Minneapolis. Minneapolis is the main city in Minnesota.
Actually there are three cities nearby here in this region: Minneapolis, St. Paul the capital,
and Bloomington where we are. All three very close to each other, good huh?
Now that I'm familiar with things here, I'm noticing some interesting things
For example: some of the stores have multiple locations. So they make it more convenient.
Do you know what is one of the top seller items here at the mall? Luggage.
A lot of people come here from other cities, states, and even other countries,
and after all this shopping they don't have how to take their stuff back home.
Now I'm going to show you something cool
Want to see the biggest advantage of staying in a hotel inside the mall?
I was wondering if you guys could send someone to pick up my bags at the mall?
Okay.
Here they are.
Thank you very much.
No kidding, he was here in less than five minutes after I called
and now they're just going to drop everything in my room.
I'll now check out the aquarium here
I love these things.
I love the way how they encourage people to touch and everything is just so beautiful down there.
Really worth the visit.
I loved to visit the Mall of America. Actually, I didn't have time to do everything that I wanted
I think I needed an extra day. But most importantly: No Coat Challenge - done!
Actually, almost. There was an exception last night to go to Minneapolis,
but I'm not sure I really needed as it was less than a minute walking outside.
All those buildings downtown are interconnected.
Now of course I wanna go back and really visit Minneapolis and it seems to be a beautiful city.
Guys, I just wanted to thank again everybody at Mall of America
It was so much fun, it like a holiday retreat, that's how I felt.
If you wanna see some photos
just look for me on Instagram and Facebook;
and for the story behind this story here
RenataPereira.tv