Mil-Rocky and MADison

So I'm in Madison now but I thought I'd write about my short trip to Milwaukee. Let me first say that I think Milwaukee is a really underrated city. I'd say it is like a way more laid back version of Chicago but that isn't quite right. It definitely has it's own flavor. I'd say it is a lot like Tucson in that it doesn't seem to know that it is a city of 2,000,000 people. It's a big city with a small city feel, especially after just being in Chicago.

I took Megabus in from Chicago, by myself actually because Palmer had to take a later bus. I got in around 5 and then I got picked up by Courtney, my couchsurfing host. If you don't know, couchsurfing is a website/community of people that allow people to stay at their homes when they are traveling. The idea is to not only save people money who are traveling but for the hosts to be ambassadors for their cities as well as friends. If you're curious about learning more check out couchsurfing.com. Courtney was really cool, she had a place a good bit south of the city and went there right away. I got settled in and I offered to cook dinner. She apparently doesn't know how to cook so was excited that I offered. We went to buy groceries and as we went started to share some of our best stories of love and loss. She was too generous not letting me help pay for the groceries, we then picked up Palmer and soon he too was forced to tell his own story. Dinner was really nice and we were tired so we just stayed in and watched Edward Scissorhands, great movie.

Unfortunately we could only stay with Courtney one night so I had scrambled and found someone else, Carl to let us stay the second. That morning we drove to the other side of town, said goodbye to Courtney and hello to Carl. Carl was also really nice and extremely well traveled for his 19 years. He joined Palmer and and I and we walked the couple of miles into the city and he gave us the tour. I really enjoyed it, Milwaukee had some nice stuff to see including one of the coolest buildings I have ever seen, their art museum. picture
We went to some crazy used bookstores and I found a bunch of copies of the book I had been looking for, Guns Germs and Steel as well as another book. Milwaukee which has a rich German heritage even has a small sort of Little Germany town complete with it's own Hofbrau of Munich restaurant. After a while Carl had to go to take care of some stuff and Palmer and I were tired so we took a nap in a park for a couple hours.

When we woke up we went to take the bus the Brewers baseball game that I was sure was going on. We waited for the 90 bus which was supposedly the bus that only ran on days when the Brewers were playing and went right to the station. It didn't come so we took another bus that didn't go all the way to the stadium instead. We got off a bit too early and had to make an awkward trek through neighbourhoods, over fences, over train tracks, and under highways to get there but we did. Unfortunately we were the only ones, the parking lot was empty. We quickly realized I was wrong about the time of the game and were a bit disappointed. However all was not lost, there was still baseball to be seen. Near the stadium was this ultra nice little league stadium they had erected. It was the Brewers v. Cubs and it seemed like it would be cheaper and more entertaining the MLB anyway. So we stayed and watched, it was great. I sometimes forget how uncoordinated children are. Palmer and I announced the game to ourselves making up the names of the kids, including star picture, "Scott Osterrich" who was not to be trifled with. After the game (Brew-Crew over the Cubbies 5-2) we went to the Fridays front row restaurant to check our the stadium, watch some sports, and let me settle up by buying an appetizer for losing the bet we had made on the LL game.

We took the bus back to Carl's and hung out there the rest of the evening. We met his roommates and a friend of his and we all played music on instruments only one person, the owner of all of them knew how to. Myself, Palmer and Carl's friend who missed the last bus all slept in the living room on some extra mattresses.

The next day we overslept and missed the bus we were originally going to take but made the 300pm bus to Madison. We got there and walked with our luggage. I am getting so sick of walking with my stuff. I hate traveling heavy and the only reason I am doing it is because I have to got camp after this and I don't want to laundry all the time. Still my duffel bag is both heavy and a piece of shit. I'm going to burn it at camp. We did eventually make our way to the "Hodag House" where six members of the University of Wisconsin ultimate team lives. At nationals I had asked one of their members, and one of my top ultimate man-crushes (platonic) Andrew Mahowald is we could stay with him. When we got there, Drew and Shane, another member of the team were already there. We got the tour, its a pretty crazy house, but in a nice neighborhood. We then went to the house where Drew's sister, a member of the women's team lived because there was some free beer to be had. We played a game called "washers" which is similar to bags but played with large metal washers. It was really fun and we started to get drunk.

It started to rain to we went back the Hodag house and some people came over and we got more drunk, playing some beer pong as well as a game called shoulders I just learned. It is always fun meeting an ultimate team in a non-ultimate setting and seeing how they interact. I would say Wisconsin is the team most like us out of any I have hung out with (though better at disc, they did just with the national championship). They are clearly great friends and I think just have a very similar energy about them, especially their older players. Palmer and I had an epic overtime beerpong match against Drew and Muffin (another player) trying to avenge our embarrassing nationals loss. It came down to one cup v. one cup in overtime and we lost on their house rule that if you overshoot the table you lose a cup. It really changes the game a lot. Eventually I got really tired and passed out in one of the rooms of a player who isn't here right now, Kevin Riley. I'm actually typing this on his computer right now. So far it has been really fun getting to know the Hodags, especially Drew and Shane. I think whenever Palmer wakes up we will go check out Madison.

As a new feature of this every improving Blog I will be saying at the end of each post what books I'm reading.

Just Finished : Dead Man's Walk - Larry McMurtry
Currently Reading: Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
On Deck: Shadow Puppets- Orson Scott Card


XOXOXOXO
Joey