Heeding the advice of my brother-in-law, I joined the Marriot Rewards club earlier this month. As a result, the way in which I am treated at hotels has changed drastically. First, they bumped us to an awesomer (that is a word) room for no charge because they were slow that week. The result: This awesome suite with a great view of the city of Milwaukee.
Our hotel room also included free dinner, breakfast, access to their fitness center, and a special little welcome basket that said "Elite Member". I like being called elite.
The morning of the interview went quite well, and after an enormous buffet breakfast Alex drove me to the VA. The fist thing that struck me was the cemetery on the VA campus. (I didn't take the picture below, but it's a nice photo of the cemetery section of the campus).
The VA is divided into 3 branches. The VA hospital, Vocational Rehabilitation, and Cemeteries and Burials. The Milwaukee VA is the only VA in the country to house all 3 branches on their campus. Pretty cool, right? The other little factoid I learned about the Milwaukee VA is that it is one of the 3 initial VAs signed into existence by President Lincoln. This is an old photo I found of the VA.
The interview day itself went fabulously. I got to see one of my old cohort mates who is now completing a post-doc and proudly describes himself as "lame" as he is now living in the burbs with his wife and new son (sounds pretty nice to me!) The folks at the VA were absolutely wonderful and I was extremely impressed with all this internship has to offer. So...yes, I officially loved my 3rd interview as well. Ranking day is going to be difficult.
Following the conclusion of my interviews Alex and I decided to see what the city of Milwaukee had to offer the Woods. He had spent the day giving the city a preliminary tour, deciding on which areas he wanted to take me to later. So we stopped back at the hotel (ate a cheese/sausage snack he had picked up for me) and set off for the evening.
The first stop was the Historic Third Ward District of Milwaukee. This area is absolutely hipster-riffic, and we loved it! There was the cute little public market
with a lot of wonderful tasting beer!!
Following our time at the market we went further into the Third Ward District and did some window shopping. 
We then ate dinner, grabbed some key-lime pie for the road and set off for the Safe House. 
The Safe House is described as a spy bar and is apparently "legendary" in the Milwaukee area. The outside is rather unassuming and sports a "International Exports LTD" plaque as its only description. To get in, you have to know the password. If you don't, you are required to do something silly (like the Macarena or doing a dance). All of this however, unknown to you, is being videotaped and there are tv screens all over the bar so people can watch this happening. Luckily when we went in the "Quality Control" was on break, which left us fumbling about trying to find our way in. We ended up pulling a lever and a bookcase twirled around exposing the hidden passageway to us. (We actually thought this was way cooler later on as we watched folks jumping about out in the lobby to gain entry).
The inside of the bar is fabulous and they serve martinis that fly through little tunnels, there are pictures from tons of famous people (most of the cast of Star Wars) that have visited, and little nooks and crannies all over the place.
Every corner has a booth to go in, or something to look at. In the women's restroom there's a naked photo of Burt Reynolds with a metal flap wisely placed over his more indecent areas. When someone (like me, for instance) tries to lift the flap to get a better look, an alarm and lights go off letting the rest of the bar know what someone just attempted to do.
You can exit the bar via the traditional route, or as we discovered, via the phone booth. We found a secret room with a phone. When we picked up the receiver the voice was telling us a code. We punched in a code and a door slid aside and exposed a long, dark tunnel that eventually led out to the street. Way cool.
We crashed rather early that evening but not before taking our time to enjoy the city of Milwaukee a little more. It really was quite nice.
The next morning we set off back home to Iowa bright and early. The roads were clear but the fog was incredible!
Up next: Norfolk Virginia, Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis Missouri. And that's just next week!!
