Der Kommisar

Well we went to Birmingham, Michigan this past weekend. A suburb just outside of Detroit.

It's funny, once we crossed the border into Michigan, the conditions of the roads were evident. BAD! As always we were headed for an outlet. This time Birch Run, just north of Flint - the movie location for Michael Moore's - Mike and Me movie about the downfall of Flint and the politicians attempts to attract tourists there. We saw the Frankenmurth sign and I was hoping we might go and check it out. If it was on the way. But it was getting dark by the time we left Birch Run and headed down to Birmingham where Tresa's cousin Martin lives.

He's heading back to Germany at the end of this month so we wanted to see him before he left.


Birch Run

For those Shop-a-holics reading this for a review on the outlet.
It's okay. Not really worth the drive. But it's only 4 hours away.
There's a Gap outlet and Gap clearance. The Gap clearance had stuff from GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy. Pant sizes were usually 36 and UP, or XXXL and that isn't a roman numeral date or superbowl number either. But if you found something in your size it was pretty cheap. Some mark downs to 9.99 and 14.99. Whoo hoo!

There is a Pottery Barn outlet that was pretty large there. Big store, had stuff from Williams-Sonoma as well as Pottery Barn. It was pretty quiet but the store clerk said that it picks up in March. Jan-Feb are very slow. So this was nice, lots of parking. No long line ups. I guess people are paying off their credit cards.

There is a newer outlet south of Birch Run on I-75 called Great Lakes Crossing. It's way nicer. It also has a Marshall's, TJ Maxx, Sports Authority and a lot of other stores and it might be worthwhile to go there instead. But Birch Run has it's Nike Outlet, Harry and David, Coach, Adidas, Reebok, etc. Pretty standard.
This mall is on both sides of I-75 (exit 83/84).


Martin' Pad

Anyways we got to Martin's, he and his girlfriend were patiently waiting for us. Everyone seems to be always waiting for us. We arrived there at 9pm. Like every good Euro he had prepared food and offered us alcohol first, then water. There was sausages, liverwurst, deli-meats, proscuitto. Only thing missing was the bread! Guess he wasn't used to guests. But it was good enough for us. We were starving and a little tired.


Martin & Andrea

With a little bit of a break, we then left to go to a party. A lot of the ex-pats from Germany were preparing to leave the USA and heading back to the motherland. So it was party TIME! I'd have more pictures of this but I had left my charger at home thinking that I had enough charge on my battery and the spare. But both were almost empty. DAMIT.


breakfast at Eastern Market

This is like Toronto's St Lawrence. But not quite. Not even a good attempt at one. Although the food was really good here!

Mama hungry

This is downtown Birmingham. You won't find any burnt out houses like on 8 Mile, near where Mike lives. It's really nice there. 1 and 2 million dollar homes. People ticket you if you don't shovel your walkway. Lots of expensive cars. Almost like downtown Palo Alto, except with snow.

Don't look now the guy who owns this car is coming

It's kind of too bad Martin's leaving so soon. We would have visited him more often.
Martin, good thing you only live 4 hours from Toronto. Although I would've liked to have gotten more rest, the drive was pretty easy.