Madison: The Beginning

Beer plus terrace equals goodness
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I arrived in Madison on Thursday night, after driving 1,000 miles from Brooklyn with the windows down, maybe singing country music at the top of my lungs, maybe not. Rolling into Madison Thursday night was a relief, especially because the reason our trip began there couldn't have been better: an old friend from DC got married and I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in the wedding.

It was a whirlwind weekend: nails, hair, meals, hugs, drinks, toasts, smiles, love. Honestly, I can't give you a much better description than that. It went so fast. I lost my cell phone twice over the course of the weekend (handily retrieved each time, but still frustrating. Thanks to my mother for the scatterbrained gene). Click on view more photos for a cute one of bride & groom.

'Sometimes Alison acts like your mom, which is kind of annoying. But then again, your mom is often right.'

Ready for some bridesmaid action
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Sunday I spent relaxing and counting the hours till the next morning when I could head to the Dane County Airport to pick up my honey. We went for a walk around campus and then went out to dinner with my lovely and gracious host, Sarah, who not only put me up for the weekend, but introduced me to The Union, where UW students sit on the terrace of their student union, drink pitchers of beer and look out over Lake Mendota, which is pretty awesome. I have to say, Madison was pretty awesome. Like Iowa City but 1,000 times better.

Pre-wedding jitters!
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The other thing we did on Monday was join AAA. Shoutout to Alison Plenge for suggesting this to me. As Sarah said (they are excellent friends from college), "Sometimes Alison acts like your mom, which is kind of annoying. But then again, your mom is often right." In this case, cupcake, you were right. We loaded up the car with guidebooks and they have already provided numerous miracles including finding us an excellent meal in Sioux Falls, SD. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast at Lazy Jane's, a wonderfully neighborhoody establishment on Williamson Street where Lazy Jane herself is always around and the cafe's name is spelled out in giant Scrabble tiles in the window. (So obviously we had to go there.) And the food was excellent. And we struck up a conversation with a gentleman originally from NJ who has lived on Williamson Street in Madison for 15 years and absolutely loves the place, especially the biking.

I do! I will!
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I am ready to move there. But as we are aware, I am easily swayed.

After Lazy Jane's, we hit the road for MInneapolis...

Julia

Jon's P.S.  After an emotional rollercoaster of a final few days in New York (consisting of a thousand little chores that should have been done prior to my move but weren't and many farewells) I woke up at 4:00 a.m. on J and Tracey's couch to head to LGA to catch my flight to Madison.  All I wanted upon landing was some breakfast, but apparently there is a Wisconsin ordinance prohibiting the sale of eggs after 11.  Oh, and I can't pronounce the name of the state correctly either.  Other than that, I think Julia pretty much covered everything, except for that our first dinner "on the road" was sushi (in Wisconsin, go figure), and the bar we went for a pint after featured four people (drunk bartender included) arguing, from an engineering standpoint no less, the misinformation surrounding 9/11.  Not wishing to begin the trip by brawling, I held my tongue.