corned beef and slurpies

saint patrick's day in chicago seems to bring out everyone - even the non-irish. mostly, it's a time for northsiders to find themselves in the nearest bar and get completely obliterated on guinness and green beer.

while i have attended the chicago southside parade, i have never made it to the downtown parade. this year, i wanted to see the chicago river dyed green and perhaps catch a few glances of the parade.

after a exhilarating night of college basketball and euchre, gary and i woke up at chez amandrea's. i tend to act like a kid on christmas morning on days like these. while still laying in bed, i shouted some common irish saying. i, along with everyone else, realized how much it was not an irish accent, but that of a pakistani cab driver.

so we make our way downtown. we're all bundled up after parking the car. we make it one lonely block before we spot an irish bar. it goes without saying that we ended up inside. even for being open for three hours, it wasn't too busy. we ordered our guinness and green beer - the same thing i ripped on those "other" people about - and somehow ended up getting seats at the bar. the bartenders were quite busy and kinda, sorta forgot to charge us for our drinks. needless to say, we missed the dyeing of the river....and the parade for that matter.

but we got some great pictures to at least say we were there!