Milwaukee

Milwaukee did not start off well, as MapQuest let me down for the first time of this trip, perhaps due to the ungodly amount of construction on the freeways.

And then I got a parking ticket for the first time on the trip for parking overnight, even though I specifically looked for a sign banning overnight parking and found none.

I spent three nights with Kristin, a friend from IES Berlin '01-'02 who traveled with me through Scandinavia five years ago.

No, her fashion sense isn't really that bad. She's just wearing the shirt to commemorate my arrival since she got it as a joke during our time in Sweden.

One of the highlights of my time in Milwaukee was the trip to Miller Park to watch the Milwaukee Brewers play the New York Mets. The stadium was gorgeous (with a retractable roof), though our seats were so high we needed supplemental oxygen and a couple of sherpas to guide the way.

The game was back and forth for several innings until the Mets pulled ahead. In the bottom of the ninth I put on my rally hat.

That's me yelling "RALLY!" at the camera right after the Brewers hit a homerun, insisting - logically - that a rally was underway. And then the Mets went on to get three outs in a row, winning the game 12-4.

Yesterday we went to the Miller Brewing Company down in Miller Valley. It should first be noted that I don't even like Miller beer. Especially Miller Lite. Nothing irks me more than showing up at a party to see the host has splurged on two thirty racks of Miller Lite in cans. I try not to be a beer snob, but in my estimation, life is too short to drink beer out of a can.

But after seeing a regional craft brewery in St. Paul, I was interested to see how one of the largest beer producers in the United States operates. Turns out hubris is a key ingredient.

The tour starts with a movie, which in turn starts with typical inspirational music and a panning shot of a pristine Wisconsin lake at dawn. A deep voice intones, "Since the beginning, man has always longed for... Miller Time." It all goes downhill from there. The rest of the tour was also typical. "Look how great we are, using only the finest ingredients to produce the finest beer in the world," when in fact companies like Miller, Coors and Budweiser and their production of watered down swill are the reason beer lovers the world over thumb their noses at us Americans.

But then again, the tour was free, with free beer at the end, and I believe "Never turn down a free beer" should be one of the ten commandments in a beer lover's life.

Lest the reader start to assume my dedication only to lowbrow tourist attractions, I hasten to point out that we also went to the Milwaukee art museum, built just a few years ago.

But you can tell I don't have a lot to say about it, other than it boasts an impressive nineteenth century collection of German beer steins.