Day Off: Stop in Milwaukee, WI on the Way to Ann Arbor, MI

I am writing this post sitting outside a Cosi store in downtown Ann Arbor, MI; Mark’s concert starts in a couple of hours. Beautiful day, sunny, clear blue sky. I didn’t post anything since the Milwaukee show, and received some emails asking what the hell is going on. Thanks for checking up, folks—the reason was primarily due to me being extremely tired as well as occupied with some side‐project I’ve been working on. Hopefully no delays from now on.

Not much to tell about yesterday, really. Woke up to a miserably‐cloudy Minneapolis morning, again having not much of a sleep. It was a day off, like every Monday during the North American leg of the tour; the distance to Ann Arbor, Michigan, is about 1,000km and we had two days to complete it. Not much of a rush.

First thing we did though was to check‐out that place called Dunn Brothers Coffee. Recommended to me by Eric, Dunn Brothers Coffee (http://www.dunnbros.com) is a coffee‐roasting chain with stores in just nine states in the USA. Quite the espresso buff, I was determined to try it out. Went to their store on 15th street in Minneapolis; good sandwiches, grand coffee. Good job Eric for a recommendation well‐received and well‐fulfilled. I had a chat with the owner, who said he’ll be more than happy to ship some roasted beans to Canada for me. Joy; now I have 4 sources of great coffee to choose from.

Having an extremely healthy breakfast, I didn’t really need to eat anything until dinner. We drove from Minneapolis to Milwaukee—a distance of about 500km—and, due to a poor mistake I did when booking the hotels, stayed at the Ramada Hotel just by the highway. $20 cheaper than the grand Intercontinental we stayed in two nights ago; and man, this hotel looks like a prison. From the inside, and the outside. I literally couldn’t spend more than 5 minutes in that hotel room before I announced that I’m going to find a coffee place to sit in.

I’d suggest against that hotel for whoever of you who’s travelling to Milwaukee. Pick the Intercontinental if you can. It’s worth it.

---

A couple of days before that, Nancy, Jeroen and myself had dinner in this precious place called Louise’s, a great Italian restaurant at the east bank of the Milwaukee river. It was so good that we decided to skip the “try different things” approach and go there (but try different dishes). It hasn’t failed; great food, good times and we’re out of there walking towards Cafe Mocha, adjacent to the Riverside Theatre in downtown Milwaukee (that’s the very same venue in which the concert took place in Milwaukee). The place was playing an insanely‐annoying mix of house music but really, I was too tired to care. Kept on working until about 9:00pm when I felt that I cannot possibly go any longer without sleep.

Back to the hotel, and I made the apparent mistake of taking a shower before sleep as it really pushed sleep away. A few more hours of work and—done! one of my side‐projects is completed. Went to sleep feeling good, looked at the ceiling, remembered I’m in a prison‐like hotel and fell asleep.

Today’s happenings—in a separate post coming up later today or early tomorrow.

All the best,
Isaac