This weekend Tom and I decided we would experience St. Patty's Day Chicago-style. We planned our day to start early and end early, partake in a few Chicago traditions, and meet up with some friends along the way. We woke up early Saturday morning, donned our green, and walked literally around the corner to Christina's Place, our neighborhood bar which happened to be offering a FREE irish breakfast (and $2 Guiness pints). (Leave it to me to find what yelp.com calls "....the best deal in Chicago.")
We walked in at 8:30 in the morning to find the place PACKED, wall to wall, with fellow Chi-rish. The line for breakfast took FOREVER because there were only 2 people cooking as fast as they could in this tiny room with 3-4 slightly-larger-than-George-Forman grills. It was worth it though, because breakfast was yummy and did I mention FREE?
With full tummies we walked to the train station and headed downtown to see the famous Chicago River get dyed green! We walked the 2 blocks to the river and were slightly disappointed at first because the green hadn't made it down to where we were standing...but we could see it coming!
We walked a few blocks up along the river with several hundred others but luckily there were enough viewing points that it didn't seem crowded at all. We stopped for several photo ops and waved at everyone going by on boats through the green river! 
Did I mention it was a bit windy? Next on our plan was to stop in and have a drink at a bar downtown before we headed back up to our neck of the woods. We were bracing ourselves for crazy mobs of people since that is what everyone told us to expect. The first bar we walked past was practically empty but fully ready for St. Patty's Day. We enjoyed a few drinks there and took advantage of their all-you-can-eat $9 St. Patty's buffet while people in green filtered in and out.
Our final destination was a bar called The Abbey Pub which happened to be about a half mile from our apartment. Earlier in the week they had a Groupon for their "St. Patty's Festival" so we decided to check it out.
Again, we were bracing ourselves for a bar packed full of drunken college kids but were pleasantly suprised to find quite the opposite. There was plenty of room and we even got a table. Instead of college kids, there were regular kids (like less than 10 years old) running around everywhere and dancing to the irish music that was being played on stage. I had no idea it would be such a "family themed" event but apparently the Chi-rish like to start young. We each had a green beer (free with our Groupon!) while we waited patiently for our friends to join us. 
Stef and Sam finally arrived and we hung out for a while listening to the next Irish band that came on. Sam didn't get the memo that you are supposed to wear green on St. Patty's Day!
We decided that we were officially old because we thought the music was too loud and we couldn't even carry on a conversation. It went something like this
Sam: Do you think the music is too loud?
Me: What?!
Sam: I think the music is too loud, are we old?
Me: What?!
So we decided to leave and walked back to our place where we enjoyed a nice quiet dinner and some good conversation. We also thought we should have at least one of our meals not in a bar. Tom and I are glad we were able to experience being Chi-rish but maybe next year we'll settle for something a little more low key :)
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