On, Wisconsin!: We've had one, yes. But what about second Christmas?

When my friend Babs asked me to do a one-week layover in Wisconsin before heading to Canada and then another friend, Charlotte, invited me to stay at hers in Milwaukee, I couldn’t really say no. It wasn’t much more expensive than flying directly to Canada and the thought of not having to endure a 24-hour journey was just too enticing.

If you have to google where exactly Milwaukee is you aren’t alone. I was aware of the city’s existence and that it was in Wisconsin, but that was about it (it’s just north of Chicago on Lake Michigan). Nothing I read about it put it anywhere near the top of my list of places to see in the US either but the promise of a warm place to stay and personal tour guides in the form of my friends was enough to convince me.

And so, instead of flying directly into Whitehorse and my Canada adventure, I ended up landing at the airport in Chicago.

A bus ride later, I got picked up by Babs and we headed out to where Charlotte and Luke, her husband, were celebrating Serbian Orthodox Christmas with family. As seems to be tradition with every American holiday, it included copious amounts of delicious food and a football game, which, thankfully, the Packers won. After a shot or two of truly dodgy home-brewed Serbian liquor to celebrate the win, we settled into a round of “Aggravation”, a traditional Wisconsin board game which bore a striking resemblance to the German “Mensch ärgere dich nicht”.

Considering that in the early 19th century around 1/3 of all Wisconsinites were German or of German descent this wasn’t too surprising. From Holler House, the oldest regulation bowling alley that would’ve fit in with any traditional Kegelbahn in Germany, to the huge number of breweries in the city and the old buildings still bearing their original German names, the German connection could still be found all over Milwaukee. And of course the blind support for your local sports team, both professional (Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks, Milwaukee Brewers) and collegiate (Go Badgers!) and latent alcoholism were proudly imported from the German culture.

One of the largest hallmarks of the German heritage, Miller Brewing, have a full suburb just for their factory. Considering that they account for 10% of all beer sales with just their most popular brew alone this isn’t too surprising though. As a born-and-bred German I’d seen and been inside a brewery before but the scale that Miller operated on was on a completely level from tiny Herrenhäuser, my home brewery. Functionally, it was exactly the same though, with huge vats of beer and the same smell of hop that reminded me of my commute to school (yes, I went to school next to a brewery).

Not everything there was to see in Milwaukee was related to beer though. During my wanders through the city, I explored various hipster coffee shops, deli places, the Lake Michigan waterfront and the Milwaukee Art Museum, which has a huge collection of art ranging from contemporary to American folk to Northern European. The latter of which included mostly Dutch and German paintings though…

While my friends were proud to show off all the German-influenced things Milwaukee had to offer they also made sure I got to experience the core of Midwestern American culture:

At Kopp’s I had a burger roughly the size of my head, at Culver’s frozen custard and a kid’s meal that could’ve fed a small village and of course I had to shop at Best Buy and Target. Because have you really been sight-seeing in the US if you haven’t worshipped at the altar of out-of-control consumerism and over-processed, nutrient-free food?

Luckily, with the cliché tourist stops out of the way, I got to experience all the actually fun and interesting things in Wisconsin. I learned cribbage, a traditional Midwestern card game, met quite a few of Charlotte and Luke’s friends and even got to see Luke play and practice with his traditional Serbian band.

And I got to see my first NBA game live! Or rather, I finally got to be distracted from watching an NBA game live. While the players were on the floor playing, there was always something happening on the sidelines and in the stands. From music playing while the game was going on and t-shirt cannons to on-court contests during time outs, … Overstimulation was the name of the game. The Bucks crushed the Celtic though so that was nice.

The most important part of Wisconsin culture was cheese though. Specifically cheese curds. As a potential future Quebecoise I had very strong opinions, namely that cheese curds are only good when mixed with fries and gravy but, being the good guest that I am, I tried all variations of cheese that were offered to me. And while I did end the week worried for my arteries, I thoroughly enjoyed the cheese-y goodness that Wisconsin offered.

In preparation for my time in Whitehorse, Milwaukee had not just one but two snow days while I was staying at Charlotte’s which meant that as a government employee at one of the local colleges she had both days off.

On the first day, it wasn’t actually snowing but stormy and rainy so we ended up mostly road-tripping through the southern suburbs but we made sure to add in a small hike to the beach at Seven Bridges. Few things have given me more cognitive dissonance than seeing Lake Michigan and the surf and knowing that it is a lake. During the whole week I was on its shores I’d catch myself refering to it as “the ocean”…

The second snow day had actual proper snow and so, after shovelling a lot of it we slowly and carefull made our way into Madison, the state capital where both Babs and Charlotte went to college. Despite the snow, Madison was infinitely more walkable than Milwaukee and I got a full campus walking tour including a stop at the ice cream shop and a German beer hall-themed canteen. American universities (or at least this one) are definitely fancier than German ones. They might not be in defunct royal castles but the student union had a full theatre, 3 art exhibitions and all the dark wood panelling you could ask for. Most impressive though was the state capitol with its high ceilings, marble floors and Ancient Greek-inspired artwork. The Americans sure know how to impress with their government buildings.

And with that ended my week in the States and the last week of freedom before I had to go and do some manual labour in the freezing Yukon. Bring it on!