Summerfest, named the World's Biggest Music Festival by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999, was held from June 24 through July 4 this year in Milwaukee.

When Tianyi and I started off there was a shower. A few minutes before the bus came, it started to rain cats and dogs. Obviously Tianyi's tiny and delicate sun umbrella can't protect us well enough and we two got half wet when we got on the bus. Quite different from usual days, most of the passengers were white and seemed the lakeshore was our mutual destination. Having spent half an hour in a Dunkin' Donuts with hot tea and juice, we realized it was naive to expect the rain to stop and decided to take Summerfest downtown shuttle immediately.

There are some booths along the streets. Most of them sold inexpensive but fancy handmade jewelries. Tianyi was very excited about this and told me they reminded her of Xiangyang Rd back in Shanghai and those cute stalls on it. Almost all the booths were crowded with people -- some were shopping while some were just taking them as shelters. Food and beverage were available everywhere. It was not only a festival for music but for gourmets.

It was a good chance to see so many people gathering in the same spot. People walked around in ponchos of different colors. Some of them seemed to enjoy the rain more thus just got wet and didn't care about that. Whenever we stopped by a stage where a show was on, it was fun to watch people in different ages shook and clap with the music. The show impressing me most was held on Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard with Miller High Life. A guy named Nick Colionne [ sorry I really didn't know him before ] was playing guitar with his band. I was fascinated by his solo and the Jazz music really rocked!!! BTW, most audiences were in their 40s and what does this imply?

The Milwaukee downtown fireworks was scheduled at 9:30 pm on July 3rd. However, we two couldn't stand the coldness and wetness and decided to return back home at 7:30 pm. It was a pity to miss the fireworks for Independence Day. But, it was another form of fun to stay at cozy home to watch Friends with Tianyi.