Memories of Milwaukee

I really enjoyed my trip to Milwaukee last week and not just because I met a lot of wonderful people and got to spend the week making jewellery and playing with beads and metal. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the beautiful architecture to be found in the downtown area. I'm not sure what I was expecting, all I really knew about the city was that there are a bunch of breweries as well as the corporate headquarters of Harley Davidson located there, but I was blown away by some of the beautiful buildings we saw, both new and old.

Of course, the most astounding of all was the Art Museum, which is topped by the beautiful Burke Brise Soleil, a sunshade fashioned as wings that are opened and closed at different times of the day (or if the wind speed off Lake Michigan gets higher than 23 mph).

They also have a lovely Riverwalk, which runs alongside the Milwaukee River through the centre of the city. It was there that we found the Bronze Fonzie statue, a tribute to the character from the TV show "Happy Days". We had to do a bit of searching, the locals we asked weren't quite sure where it was located (one was too young to have watched the show and the others cited the excuse that it was just put up last year and they hadn't seen it yet).

I'm sure there is a lot more to see than what we did, we just didn't have time! Perhaps next year...

P.S. I read on the Internet today that similar sprinkler pranks as the one we experienced also happened in Alabama last Friday night and Arkansas on Saturday night, prior to what happened in our hotel in Milwaukee on Sunday night. Obviously a "prank wave" spreading across the U.S. and not a very amusing one.