Milwaukee Public Museum

The Milwaukee Public Museum is one of the biggest museums in the US and is located downtown Milwaukee. It is a museum of natural and human history, where you can visit Africa, Asia, Europe, the Artic, South and Middle America, the Pacific Islands and a Costa Rican rain forest. The European exhibition showed houses from all the different countries, and had facts about them on the outside. The Norwegian house was small and wooden, and had a small bed, and a woman sitting in the traditional Norwegian outfit, the "bunad", knitting a traditional "Marius"-Sweater. From the facts on the outside, I learned that the term "spooning" (sleeping together) came from Norway, as men in Norway would carve out a spoon-necklace of wood and give them to girls. If the girl accepted and wore the necklace, it would mean that she approved the men to be their husbands. 

Cell phones and SIM-cards

Cell phones in the US does not differ much from Norwegian in brands, but the models are totally different. They have Nokia, Samsung, LG, HTC and Blackberry, but instead of having plain touchscreen phones, most of the phones here have something fancy about them. Most of them are flip-up or slide phones and have a hard button QWERTY-keyboard with a screen on the inside, and a simple touchscreen on the outside. I feel like many of the most popular cell phones in Norway look a lot like(slim, big screen, full-touch phones), but vary more in operating systems and hardware specifications, while here it is more about shapes and sizes. Even though I just bought the brand new Nexus One, which is a really slim and fast running Android cellphone, I still envy people with thick brick phones when they flip them open and reveal the hard button keyboards and big screens underneath. 

Another thing is that if you buy a prepaid phone card here in the US, it is not very likely that you can receive phone calls and text messages if you do not have credit on your phone. I chose to go for the T-Mobile prepaid card, as it was only 10 dollars with 3 dollars calling or texting included. T-Mobile have good customer service, and a shop close by Stritch, but if you run out of money on the card, then you will not be able to receive any text messages or incoming phone calls. 

Taxation in stores

Imagine that you are out shopping with a certain amount of money, say 20 bucks, and you find something that you really want, which is only 19.99 and you think "yesss, I can get that", but NO.... When coming to the counter,they would say that the price is around 21 dollars. In the United States, the final price is set at the counter when the tax has been added. The tax for groceries, clothes and most of the things you can buy in shops are usually 5%, which means that you would have to add 50 cents for every 10 dollar a thing costs. This can be a pain in the ass when you are out shopping, but luckily the tax is not as high as it is in Norway(25%), so it does not make much difference.

Stritch Arrangements

All students going to Cardinal Stritch University have to pay a so called "activity fee", which is supposed to cover expenses that Stritch have when arranging trips, events, sports and the cinema. The last weeks I have heard about several activities arranged by Stritch, such as:

• Free bus trips to Chicago(about one time each semester)

• Pizza Shuttle is free, and they actually give you 5$ to buy pizza for (they drive you to place called Pizza Shuttle, which is a place where you can buy cheap and good pizza)

• Lift and ticket to NBA games cost 5$ (I have signed up to see Milwaukee Bucks this Friday).

• Trips to museums here in Milwaukeee cost 2$(I went to the Harley Davidson museum today, which was really interesting, showing different bikes such as the first that were made, bikes that were used in movies, like the bike from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, custom made bikes that were really something out of the ordinary and the machines that made the bikes).

For some activities you would really have to be quick to get seats(usually the free ones), and other activities never get filled up(like the Harley Davidson museum today)

Milwaukee Art Museum

On Wednesdays the Milwaukee Art Museum offer free entrance to their museum if you are a Milwaukee resident. The museum is definitely the most beautiful museum I have ever seen, both from the outside and the inside. When entering the museum, there was an enormous hall with glass windows and ceiling. The museum can both look like a ship with sails, or a bird with wings that slowly go up and down depending on what time of the day it is.

The museum has art in many categories such as: religion, environment, lights, and infinity. The last part I liked especially, with mirrors that "cloned" the objects so that they looked like they went on infinitely. They even had a so called "infinity room" with lights and mirrors on every side, that went on forever, just like the scene in matrix, where they have shelves with weapons that never stop. 

I found one picture that I recognized from my book in art from elementary school, which was a picture from Andy Warhol with two cans of tomatoes which were identical, except from the colors.This museum and the art that they have there is definitely something everyone who visit Milwaukee should see, as it has become one of the symbols of the town.

 

Super Bowl XLIV

The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL) and the most watched American broadcast. The Super Bowl Sunday is an actual American national holiday, and the second-largest day for food consumption in the US, right after Thanksgiving. The commercial break in between the match is also considered a big event for most Americans, as this is the time when the most expensive and thought through commercials are being played.

The atmosphere here at Stritch was really tense as the "New Orleans Saints" beat the "Indianapolis Colts" thirtyone to seventeen in Miami, Florida tonight. The school here, showed the game on a big screen at one of the common areas and gave away free food, snack and soda. During the halftime break, The Who had a show and commercials from Doritos, Google and movie ads for Alice in Wonderland and Ironman 2 filled in at the break. It was an experience, even for people who had no interest in or knowledge about the sport at all.

Theaters in Milwaukee

When googling "mvoie theaters in Milwaukee", seven different theaters came up. As I have been here, I have been to two of them, and there is also a small one here at school, which shows movies once a week. The different theaters I have been to so far are:

Marcus North Shore Theater is one of the closest theaters to Stritch. This theater looks very much like an Hotel, where all the workers are wearing suits, they havered carpeted floor, with a lot of gold covered objects. They have restaurants, and even a bar outside of the movie area, and some of their movies are shown in UltraScreen. I went to see the Edge of Darkness in the Ultrascreen auditorium, which had three stories of big comfortable seats(more comfortable than "luxussalen" in my hometown Stavanger) and a big clear screen. Ticketprice: 8,50$

Humphrey IMAX-dome is at Milwaukee Public Museum. The theater has an auditorium with seats that you can lean down and look up at the ceiling which is one big screen, covering the walls of the whole auditorium. This gives you a 3D experience, as all you can see, is the screen. I saw a documentary about fishing and sealife in South Africa, and had to close my eyes regularly, because I became sick when they flew over the shore and when there was too much going on for my brain to register. Ticketprice 5$

Cardinal Stritch University also show movies in a big auditorium every Thursday. The seats are like regular theater seats in Norway, and they serve free popcorn by the entrance. Ticketprice: Free





A difference between theaters in Norway and theaters in the US is also that you do not have to pick your own seats when purchasing tickets. This is fair for the people that arrive early to the theater, but bad for those who booked their tickets online/by phone and came late.