mad, mad madison

yesterday we woke up late and drove to madison, meeting miguel on state street (kind of like the 6th street of madison) around 3pm with teddywedgers (like cornish pasties) and listening to some odd folk band (a couple and another woman, and the couple had their kids there but kept singing about cigarettes and booze). we walked down the street, which was having a big annual sale thing where almost everything was like 50% off. i got some new clothes to add to my very paltry selection of warm-weather clothes (i wear the same 3 things every day - two bermuda shorts and a skirt). miguel and dan were very patient.

we wanted to experience wisconsin as miguel, which meant cheap beer, sub sandwiches and sleeping in the sigma chi house. he's living there over the summer with his best friend from home, who is pretty much the Man at his frat. i really never planned on going inside a sigma chi house - i never did it at stanford and i planned on avoiding it forever, but oh well. we bought pbr light (ONLY in wisconsin) and ordered jimmy john's sub sandwiches which apparently miguel does every day. they got there in ten minutes (bike couriers!) and were delicious (mine was especially good because i added peanut butter to my blt). after that, a couple sake bombs and several rounds of this weird hand-shocking game that dan was obsessed with, we were out for the night. we played darts - my new favorite game, which i only moderately suck at. yay wisconsin!

bed that night for me was in the rooms of one of the guys who lives there during the year but who isn't there (or at least wasn't there this past week). seriously, i slept with a sigma chi flag above my head. madison was truly an experience.

madison is weird, because it's totally white. i haven't seen an asian person in days, i don't think hispanics live in this part of the country and black people are few and far between, to be honest. and all the people in madison are fratboys or sorority girls (sorostitutes as miguel calls them). so bizarre and so unlike stanford. but at the same time, state street was really cool - active and quirky, like a real college town.

the next morning we woke up and after waiting for miguel forever (he went to the farmer's market) while we watched scrubs on dvd, we took off for a bookstore for the next harry potter book. very important. dan pretty much wanted to kill us but we knew that it was necessary.

we dropped miguel off at the sigma chi house and took off for chicago again to meet arielle in belmont. unfortunately the drive and the El ride and the bus ride (and waiting for the train and bus) took forever and we only got to see her for a half an hour (and a little more shoe shopping) before turning around again and driving back to madison. we picked up miguel and headed down to dan's grandma's camper, currently inhabited by his cousin erica, who is hilarious and welcomed us with brats and the offer to let us drive around the camp on a golf cart (it's a sort of strange camp with a yogi bear theme and a minigolf court and crafts on sundays and hayrides). unfortunately we got here too late to really take advantage of it, and miguel and i are too obsessed with harry potter to want to be outside by the campfire with the mosquitoes.