Saint Patricks Day - Chicago Style!

We got to Chicago about 7:20 pm on Friday with an 8pm dinner reservation at Quartinos. We had found the place online and it was good... but REALLY crowded and REALLY loud. We were thinking it was more 'fine' dining and were a bit surprised at how loud it was. It was not easy to carry on a conversation.

It was good food though - a bottle of wine shared between us and it was the perfect low key night before the big day.

Angie, Nicky and Jessica - walking back to the hotel after dinner.

Saturday morning we had a coke and vanilla vodka and shot of fireball, before we left the hotel and a hot chocolate with Baileys - that we took with us to watch the river get dyed green. The only problem with the hot chocolate was it was 70+ degrees out and perfect! But I managed to finish it right as the river changed to the greenest green color I have ever seen!

After we took more pictures of a green river than anyone would ever need, we followed the masses of people down to where the parade was, but with time to spare before it got started - we visited the "bean" at Millennium Park, right off of Michigan Avenue. This was on Nicky's must see list - so I'm glad she got to see it. It is pretty cool and the area was very crowded.

(Yes, our shirts say "Kiss Me I'm Iowish".)

We didn't actually make to the parade... silly, I know, but we found a perfect place for lunch with open door/patio type seating and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to drink some green beer, have some Chicago deep dish and people watch for a couple of hours... :-)

We walked around for awhile to other area's of Chicago and finally found an Irish bar that didn't look too packed, O'Callaghans. It was prefectly busy, but space to move around and we spent the rest of the day there, meeting new people, having beer and taking a couple shots.

We had a great time! And although I was a bit tipsy, none of us were out of control! :)
We even took a minute to give Brendan, my friend that passed away, a shout out - as this was "his" holiday.

We had a great time and it was so fun to spend it with my friends in a town that was packed with people that seemed to all be in great moods. The weather was perfect, the beer was cold, the food was delicious - and I got to check 'Driving in Chicago" off of my life list.
Perfection.