Drinking in Milwaukee

Now, those who know me know that normally I don't drink that "beer" stuff, but I definitely seem to have made up for lost time on this holiday! After we finished up in the state fair (about 3pmish), we went to a few diferent bars to meet a few different friends of K's (and where I discovered Miller High Life, a brand you can't get at home). Eventually, late-ish in the evening, we ended up in this place called the Safe House. Bit of a strange place, it's got a whole spy thing going: all sorts of 07-type decor, and to get in you have to know the secret password. If you don't know the password you have to do somethgin slightly embarassing, like frisk down whatever friend you're with (no, nothing x-rated!), and it's all shown on CCTV inside the bar. Luckily I didn't have to do this, as there's a "secret passageway" entrance from the next door bar which we used to get in (just looks like a bookcase or something from the Safe House side when closed). This place has a few speciality cocktails, like the Spy's Demise, which nearly did for me for the night (or maybe it could have been the 10-odd beers I'd had til that point), and one called the (??) which is HUGE! Is $25 for the one drink, and you get it in a glass the size of a fish bowl, with 4 straws.

Funny thing is, we didn't even have to buy it, was this random chick at the bar, fairly drunk, who didn't know what to order and was looking for some advice. So, once she saw this thing, she got it, and just to make sure she had room for it, she donated her Long Island Iced Tea to me and her friend's Mojito(?) to someone else (Devrah maybe)! Once she heard my accent she was all "omigod, I can't believe you're from Ireland! Go on, say somthing, anything!" and hanging off of me. So, I had a momentary thought of "heh, score", but then she disappeared off to the toilets. According to K, who was in there a few mins later, she was puking her ring up, and was still doing it 5-10 mins later when Devrah went in! She disappeared anyway, so we decided it'd be a shame to let this big-ass drink go to waste (to be fair, we did give her about another 10mins to come back first!)

After the Safe House, we went on to an "Irish" bar called the Co. Clare, which wasn't as bad as a lot of "oirish" bars I've been in - was more a hotel bar that happened to sell Irish drink than anything else. We hit there a few mins before closing time, so didn't manage much out of them, then headed back to Stan's house for munchies (grilled cheese sandwiches!). at some stage somewhere around the Co. Clare we managed to pick up another member of the group (Dave?), who pretty much as soon as we got to Stan's house started schmoozing on Devrah, with a whole "my life has been so hard" sensitive artist line - he was a photographer I think, and pretty much did everything bar ask her if she'd pose for him :-) The night ended soon after that anyway (memories aren't the due to not being used to beer, plus them big fecking cocktails), with the last act being the eating of pasta - with nothing else - in K's place. So, a good night was had by all!