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St Patrick’s Day Parade in Chicago


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Posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 3:17 am CET

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone!! Last Saturday we went to downtown Chicago to witness the Chicago River going green and after that we walked to Grant Park for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which started at noon. The parade lasted for about 3 hours, which was really too long, but it was still fun. Lots of groups gave out free stuff (like green hats, beads, candy, etc.) and it was a sport trying to get as much as you can (we didn’t get much though).

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The parade started out with some Illinois politicians, including Governor Pat Quinn, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Roland Burris and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

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The parade was made up of city officials and politicians (and their extended families), organizations, Irish clubs, marching bands and dancers, media (tv and radio stations) and other companies (like McDonald’s and Guinness), unions (firemen, plumbers, etc.), schools and some miscellaneous strange things.

There was a huge balloon of a leprechaun:

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Another balloon of Kermit the Frog. He’s green, so that’s okay.

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And the third balloon was a fish. I didn’t entirely get that one, but it was a nice fish and the dozen or so people holding the strings were doing a great job moving it around as if it was swimming.

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There were a lot of cops going around on Segways. Very cool. I’d love to try one of those things out once.

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And then of course there were lots of leprechauns …

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… horse-and-carriages …

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… acrobats …

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… TV stations with their famous news people …

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… bagpipes …

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… marching soldiers …

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… more bagpipes …

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and of course walking glasses of Guinness. 😉

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The parade went on and on and on. There seemed no end in sight, but after 3 hours it did actually end. We had a great time and burnt our faces from standing in the sun all day. About 400,000 people watched the parade, and I guess at least twice as many were in the parade. 😉

We had a late lunch at the Artists Cafe on Michigan Avenue and then walked back to Union Station to take the train back to Round Lake.

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