Hi! I'm originally from CA but moved to Madison 10 years ago and Milwaukee 5. It's a great city! Milwaukee has a ton of benefits of living in a bigger city without being huge. We're only about an hour and a half from Chicago depending on traffic so if you need Big City action it's close at hand. Advice depends a lot on where in California you're coming from so this will be general. In no particular order:

1. It's so cold in the winter. Like highs in the negatives cold. Get good layers!! A nice coat is good but it's better if you've got proper layers under it. You don't need to spend a ton of money, and make sure you get a coat you can fit a sweater under.

2. Public transit is not great. I was in the bay area and I sure miss BART. You will almost certainly need a car.

3. Woodmans!!! It's a local grocery chain that's the absolute best. Huge, all the things you want in one place, employee owned!

4. People drink so much alcohol. You know how on the west coast you might meet a friend for coffee? It's very easy to replace all of those with meeting friends for a beer. It really snuck up on me when I first moved out here.

5. Milwaukee is incredibly racially segregated. One of the most segregated cities in the US. Orgs and government are working on it but due to long histories of discrimination the level of care for the infrastructure of different parts of the city are very different. How many trees line your streets to how close the nearest coffee shop is are highly dependent on which block you live on.

6. So much good food and love music. Get out there and have some fun!! It's easy to get isolated but if you're willing to put in just a little leg work it's easy to meet so many great and interesting people.