Chicago Celebrates St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I knew you would love the picture of the Chicago River dyed green, pictured above. I found it over at the History Channel, which has a nice webpage set up for St. Patrick's Day. Actually, St. Patrick's Day is Monday, but everyone is rushing to celebrate before Holy Week, which begins tomorrow.

Although I was hoping for a little extra sleep after a tough week, I woke up early this morning, excited for our plans to go see the Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade. The whole family is going! We don't plan to go see the dying of the Chicago River. The way that the parade route is now set up makes that quite inconvenient. In fact, the entire parade is really quite inconvenient--I really liked it much better when it marched down State Street. We had to give that up for security concerns, though, so I guess we shouldn't complain.

I have already been to two corned beef and cabbages, and I think I am going to a third. If you don't want to go downtown to celebrate, Hackney's is a good choice. At Lake Avenue they have more shamrocks hung everywhere than you can shake a shillelagh at!

We are going to be very green for the Parade, as we are taking public transportation downtown.

UPDATE: We had a great time at the Parade, but it was too cold! The turnout was fantastic, though, and I have never seen so many green hats and green accessories. The effect was very festive. It was particularly great to see people of all races and colors wearing the green; this is a fairly recent development. We have the Irish to thank for inviting everyone to join in what used to be a strictly ethnic celebration. St. Patrick's Day is rapidly becoming a holiday that unifies the diverse people of Chicago, which makes it special indeed.