Our U2 Adventure! (I mean it, very adventurous)

So as you may know by now, we hit Soldier Field in downtown Chicago (or near it or whatever) for the U2 concert last night. They played two shows in the city over the weekend, their first stop back in the US in some time apparently. (I don't follow these things, this is what I've been told).

So U2 is Shawn's favorite band. I mean, he knew all the songs last night except the one they've never played before. I would say I knew about 50%. But since I love their style, that was fine by me, it was like hearing all new music for me!

So we met Nate downtown and our neighbor Ruth took our kids. We traded so they could go to a concert a couple of weeks ago on a school night. It works out well for us! Though maybe she doesn't think so any more. You'll see why here in a bit.







First stop: Dinner. Volare, lovely Italian place, weird bathrooms. The sink was in front of the stall. You had to push the door in and scoot around the sink to go into the toilet. Very bizarre. I didn't take a picture. I have no idea why I didn't. I had pesto, and I don't know what the guys had. Shawn had some very yummy meatballs though, he let me try them.



Then we left our car in the garage by the restaurant and hailed a cab. No one would let me take a picture so I had Shawn take one of me instead. Then I took the pic of the map and rates, because it is fun (I think) to look back at stuff like that and think about how "cheap" it "used to be". ;)






Here we are upon arrival:




See how it says : Rain or Shine? They mean that, lucky for us there hasn't been a nicer day this entire month I don't think, the weather was perfect, not too cold or too hot.



Sorry for the blur. I was trying to figure out my new camera at dusk. Bad planning on my part. ;)



Snow Patrol opened for them, and I love them already, so that was a nice treat!




Then I took 24578923 million pictures trying to get *something* good, and by good I mean somewhat tolerable for other people to have to view. My apologies ahead of time. Bono made fun of the Space ship which was good. There wasn't as much political chatter as I anticipated which was nice, since Bono and I aren't usually on the same page, hell, we aren't usually in the same book. But it wasn't bad.

Here are a few shots (these look better bigger, if you click on them you can see them in a larger size):












The song Walk On was dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi.U2 have joined the widespread condemnation at the conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's pro-democracy leader. In 1990, the military junta called a general election, which the National League for Democracy won by an overwhelming 82% of the votes. Being the NLD's candidate, Aung San Suu Kyi under normal circumstances would have assumed the office of Prime Minister.[20] Instead, the results were nullified, and the military refused to hand over power. This resulted in an international outcry. Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest at her home on University Avenue in Rangoon. During her arrest, she was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990, and the Nobel Peace Prize the year after. Her sons Alexander and Kim accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. Aung San Suu Kyi used the Nobel Peace Prize's 1.3 million USD prize money to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people.

She sounds like quite the woman, I have never heard of her before last night, but the show was touching and led me to look further at her story.
You can see that U2 had members of the audience walk on the outer circle with a mask. (hard to see the masks, but they all have one). It was touching.



So our real adventure began after the concert. We followed Nathan south. Through miles of tunnels and parking lots. I am not making this up, nor am I exaturating! Not even a little bit. It took us over an hour to walk to a street where a cab would drive by so we could hale the damn thing. Then we shared with two other people who were in the same boat as we were. They were "on our way" only they weren't. It sucked, and we were very squished.
This intersection is about an hour walk from Soldier Field and the first possible place we could catch a cab. It was crazy!



When we finally made it back to the car it was after midnight. Ruth was SO nice about the fact that we walked in the door at 1:30am, and I hope she still likes us. I didn't see her at the bus stop this morning, I'm thinking that isn't a good sign. :( I'll let you know.