Adrie Reinders

It was a special day yesterday – at the invitation of Stephanie Kern, founder of Van der Bloemen Creative, we watched the Oscars on the big screen at a cinema in Milwaukee. It was really great to sit down with a large group of movie and Oscar enthousiasts and watch the events unfold. Luckily my favourite actor Sean Penn, won the Oscar for best male actor for his performance in “Milk”.

After the event, I returned to my hotel for the night in Milwaukee, The Iron Horse, www.theironhorsehotel.com. Staff at the Iron Horse is exceptionally friendly and are well trained. The room I stayed in, was by far the nicest room I have seen in a long time. The old warehouse this hotel is housed in, has been converted with great taste and style. The rooms are well equipped offering all that a traveller might need, whilst maintaining the history of the building and highlighting accents here and there such as a bare brick wall, or exposed pipes.

Breakfast is served in the Library, a great room with a lot of ambiance. Food was of an excellent quality and offering a wide variety of choices. Our waiter, Bobby, was very friendly and has a real passion for the hospitality business whilst Kira Markel was happy to answer any questions I had.

In short, a gorgeous hotel with its very own, distinct character and equipped to deal with the most spoilt business man/woman.

Comfort: 8,5
Service: 8,5
Food: 8
Price/Quality: 9

Milwaukee,

Yesterday I was on a journey of discovery – visiting Milwaukee by train from Chicago to meet with our friends CD and Stephanie. The journey started at Union Station, Chicago where I had to collect pre-reserved tickets. Not a good experience, very unfriendly personnel, not to mention their total lack of interest in their customers. The train journey itself was good – and the people in Milwaukee were the total opposite to their colleagues in Chicago.

We held the first meeting at Milwaukee’s Public Market – an interesting concept of an indoor market, well done and quite necessary in the kind of weather we encountered on our visit to Milwaukee. One of the shops there deserves a mention – Kehr’s candies, www.kehrs.com. I couldn’t resist and bought some chocolate – the best I have tasted in years.

For the remainder of my meetings, I was at the Iron Horse Hotel – a former warehouse which only opened its doors a short while ago. It looked very good, not like your run of the mill business hotel. It has a lovely lobby, with comfortable seats – a gorgeous library with massive open fire and the guest rooms look comfortable and appealing. Definitely worth staying at if you happen to be in Milwaukee – www.theironhorse.com