Coast to Coast, LA to Chicago.: Little green lemmings!

So, St. Patrick's Day in Chicago is ridiculous. Like absolutely redic. I've never lived anywhere with a measurable Irish population and clearly this city is proud of its ties to The Emerald Isle. Boyfriend and I decided to head downtown to see the dyeing of the Chicago River and the St. Patrick's Day Parade through Grant Park.

I'm trying this new tactic where I don't tell one million details that aren't at all vital to the plot of the story. In an attempt to continue this trend, I'll brief you on our St. Patrick's Day happenings.

***Oh, wait! Before I continue, allow me to post today's song. I nearly forgot!***

We intended on getting downtown in time to actually see the dye being dumped into the river, but alas, 10am on a Saturday morning is just too unfriendly of a time to be anywhere by. No matter, it was the color of the river I wanted to see, not the act of dyeing it per se. Due to some maintenance on the El, we didn't get downtown until nearly 11:30 and I'm glad we hadn't attempted to leave in time to see the dyeing because we wouldn't have made it and I would have been inconsolable and cranky at our travel time being out of my control.

I have pictures that I'll post after this brief recap of the day that will do a better job at describing what it was like downtown. We looked at the river for a bit and then (stupidly) headed over to Grant Park to watch the parade. I say stupidly because we were 2 of over 350,000+ attempting to watch the parade that followed a route of a whopping 2 blocks. This meant the crowd was about 100 people deep in most viewing spots. Extremely poor planning on the city's part. We ended up just heading back home since it was impossible to get anywhere close to the parade route. I didn't have my heart set on the parade, but it was still frustrating. I think the crowd size was increased by the extremely high temperature. At 80 degrees, today was the hottest St. Patrick's Day on record.

After we came home and regrouped, we headed back out to meet up with Boyfriend's sister. We went to Wrigleyville (which for you non-Chicagoans is basically where all the irresponsible college age lushes hang out). The streets were INSANE. It looked like Mardi Gras with the amount of people that were out. The bars were wall to wall people with floors so sticky that at one point I actually had to use my hands to pick my leg up to un-stick my shoe from the putrid filth. We didn't end up staying out too long, and after some home made carne asada and chicken tacos for dinner (so Irish, I know) we were literally in bed and completely asleep before 11:30. Hah.

See for yourself just how covered in green clad people the city was!