A (Brazilian)'s impressions of Milwaukee.

From a weekend that he spent in Milwaukee, the one (gay) (Brazilian) (STEM post-doc) who I know from around town was saying that he really liked the city, and that he thinks it's very "cultural."

"Why do you think it's cultural?", I was like.

"Because it has chili," he was like.

(He had gone to a local chili place in downtown Milwaukee and really enjoyed it, and then he went back the next day to try their chili spaghetti that they had, although he was surprised when it came without peanuts, since he had seen it from a distance and thought that the oyster crackers on top were peanuts. "It's really very healthy," he was like, "The noodles, the beans, the meat...", to which I had to disagree, and be like, "But there's also a lot of cheese and sour cream," to which disagreement he did not respond at all, but instead let the subject drift off.)

Anyhow, I asked him what he meant by that, and he said that when he's been to someplace like Chicago, it's a big city and he likes it, but it has a generic cosmopolitan international culture, whereas with Milwaukee, it has the chili, it has the sausage, it has the cheese, and it just has a very unique local culture that you just don't see in other places, because it's small enough to be out of the mainstream and so it can develop and keep that local culture and not have it be wiped out.

And, I told this to two college friends who live there, and they had to agree with him, and they respected his take!

I also mentioned his perspective to my one (former) (assisted living client) with (disabilities), and she said that Chicago has a unique food culture with deep dish pizza and Chicago-style hotdogs.

So, I asked him about that, and he said, yes, that's true, but it's more "industrial," it's like they're trying to sell you the tourism, but Milwaukee, it's more authentic, it's everywhere, it just feels more natural.

He also said that people were very nice there, and he was surprised about that, because he associates warm people with warm climates, and he's been to Connecticut and people there are cold, and Milwaukee has snow like Connecticut, so he thought people there would be cold, too, but no, they were some of the warmest people he's met in the U.S.