Random Surprises

It started in Racine, Wisconsin. After Katie had identified about 29 beautiful houses in which to live, we had decided to get out of the car and walk through the charming town. It was there that we met the man in the kilt. We had found the town quaint and sweet and homey. But I think he was surprised by that. Racine, he told us, was built by people like his great-grandfather who came from England to work at the local steel mill. (Katie wants you to know it's mostly a Danish town). But unlike Gary or Michigan City, the steel mill was north of town, so when it started to shed workers and tighten its financial contributions to the city, the city was able to diversify into a resort area. It was the man in the kilt who told us where to get our Kringle, a large Danish pastry that takes 3 and a half days to make. (At the end of any of those three days, it's really just a Danish in Mike's opinion). The final surprise about Racine was the bartenders in Milwaukee who laughed at our praise for it. Apparently, Racine is "the armpit of Wisconsin". He cited the current 9.9% unemployment as proof. (We didn't mention Detroit's 20.5% or Troy, Michigan's 13.6%.)

The surprises continued when we went to a microbrew in Milwaukee. This is, after all, America's beer captial. We were expecting a good brew and a competent waiter. We got neither. So, Katie did the "I have fresh blisters while wearing high-heels" shuffled back down the block to the Safe-House. This spy themed restaurant was amazing. It's the kind of place that you enter through the backdoor, have to give a password to enter, enter through a secret door disguised by a library shelf, and filled with mementoes of the cold-war days. With their speciality drinks, a men's room that opened to a brick door, the world's largest mechanical puzzle, we had to close this bar down. That's when we got the added treat of hanging out with the staff, who were equally fantastic.



The surprises continued the following day. First, Mike found out that Wisconsin has worse drivers than Michigan. Second, we found that Wisconsin-ites really like their vanity plates (Jebus has been our favorite thus far). And third, we went to the East-End to America's 7th best movie theater. We watched Cyrus with six, five foot tall Buddha statues overlooking us. Just a pleasant surprise. In fact, we were more interested in the theater than we were in the movie.

Yet the biggest surprise may have been this. If you were planning to witness one of Joan of Arc's miracles, then you may want to cancel your cross Atlantic trip to Paris and book your tickets to Milwaukee instead. At the center of Marquette University is a small church, imported from Lyon, France. Inside, is a stone that Joan of Arc had kneeled down and prayed. After kissing the stone, the slab of rock became colder than the others around it. Today, that rock is in this small, French chapel in Wisconsin. The stone is still colder than the others around it, though, today, they use is as a shelf.