St. Patrick's Day [celebrated] in Chicago

I headed south on Michigan Ave. in Chicago this morning at about 10:30, and was crossing the river just as they dumped in the green goo - so that was pretty fun. I had to go down to lower Wacker to get around the crowd, so I got to look at the advancing green tide from a couple of angles - they put the dye in between the Michigan Ave. bridge and the Lake, and since they made the Chicago River flow inland like a hundred years ago, as a guy was saying behind me in the crowd "so all our shit and trash doesn't go into the lake" the green goes inland, too.

They sure take St. Pat's seriously in Chi-town. I ate breakfast at Lou Mitchell's - I was having trouble finding it, I thought it wasn't as far south as Jackson St., so I hailed a cab at the Metra station to get me there - I was probably only 2 blocks away on foot, but it was a $5 cab ride (including tip) because of the one-ways - and they were handing out little cups of green soft serve ice cream.

I saw hundreds of revelers, but I never caught a glimpse of the parade - the green goo was probably more fun, anyhow. And omigod, out of all those people, there were only like 4 girls that were like behind me for like, maybe, 2 blocks, who were so, like loud and obnoxious, I couldn't wait to get away.