Christmas week done a little differently part 2

In part 1 I covered our drive up to Green Bay and our couple stops along the way. Part 2 is all about Green Bay and our wonderful experience we had there. I was shocked how nice everyone was considering what die hard fans they are. They were so appreciative of us visiting their city and enjoying everything they have to offer.

We arrived in Green Bay after dark. The drive was foggy from Milwaukee to Green Bay and I honestly couldn’t wait to get there. We got off the freeway and started driving down the main road and all of a sudden all you could see was a lit up sky and a lit up G from the stadium. It was breath taking! Where the stadium is, is a suburb area, with houses all around. We could see the lights from the stadium from our Airbnb. We were about a 6 minute walk to the stadium. It was perfect!

After we settled in we headed down to Lambeau Field to walk around and check out the outside. They had a beautiful Christmas tree set up around the atrium area. We checked out the statue of Vince Lombardi.

Across the street from the stadium they have an area called Title Town. They had an ice rink set up, a tubbing slope, and lights for the holiday. As we were heading over there we stopped to watch a Christmas movie on the side of the stadium, with fireworks and all. It was super cool and they ran it every hour. We then headed over to the Title Town area to walk around and had dinner at Hinterland Brewery. I really enjoyed this little area set up for the holidays. It was pretty busy when we were there even for it being a little later in the evening.

We ate at Hinterland Brewery, which had moose heads and deer for decor and seemed to be the place for Browns fans. We met Paul Brown, a Browns fan from the UK. He has traveled to see the Browns play in multiple cities and was hanging with a bunch of other Browns fans. It was super cool to see all of the Browns fans at an away game, Christmas weekend in one place.

I’ll be honest from being in the car all day I was hungry but not really feeling food. I tried their blueberry wheat beer and it was really good, not too sweet and had the right amount of blueberry flavor. They had a lot of beers that sounded unique and I wish I would have been more in the mood. For appetizers we tried the cheese curds and Brussel sprouts. One word to describe the cheese curbs is Delicious! I wish I could get these more places because I would always eat them. I honestly have had better Brussels but they were fine. My biggest complaint is there were not many full Brussels. Most were crispy leaf pieces, which I do like but I need a good mixture. One of our friends tried the steak meal and said the steak came out cooked pretty close to perfect. I tried the fried chicken sandwich with a side salad. The sandwich was huge. The chicken was juicy and crispy. I really liked that the sandwich had lots of pickles. The flavors from the buttermilk chive dressing and the fried chicken blended so good together. The bun that is used was too much bread for my liking. There was so much deliciousness going on that I would have liked a smaller bun. The house salad was fresh and the ranch had good flavor.

Game day, Christmas Day, we ate breakfast from a gas station and tailgated with all the browns fans we could find and my friend, who is a Packers fan.

The inside is the stadium was just as a amazing as the outside. We paid to visit the Packers Hall of Fame before the game. It was super cool with lots of football history.

Our seats were pretty close to the Browns bench. It’s been a long time since I have had seats this close to the field for a football game. It was worth every penny. The field and stadium are just iconic and it was so much to take in. It was such an experience.

We headed out Sunday morning and made one more stop on our way home for lunch. We checked out another Illinois favorite, Portillo’s. We tried their single and double cheeseburgers. I was so glad I got the single, as it was huge and the double was crazy big. The burgers had Mayo, ketchup, pickle, tomato, onion and lettuce. I made it a meal with crinkle cut fries and a candy cane shake. I wish I would have tried a different shake. The candy cane was fine but it had crushed up pieces of candy canes which was a little much.

We also tried a Chicago hot dog. It had mustard, relish, celery salt, chopped onions, sliced red ripe tomatoes, kosher pickle and sport peppers all on a poppy seed bun. I honestly didn’t get a chance to try this but my husband did and said when he got a bite with all the ingredients, the flavors just worked so well together. The sweetness of the pickle with the spicy of the peppers.

The game didn’t end the way Browns fans would have liked but wow it was such an experience to see this amazing stadium. I feel so blessed and grateful as a football fan. This is a must visit stadium and the city and the people were so welcoming! It may not be Cleveland but it was so awesome to visit.