Chicago! U2!

Beth and i went to Chicago. The ultimate purpose for going was a U2 concert on Tuesday night, but we left on Monday morning and spent a couple of days hanging out in Chicago and just having fun until the concert.

On Monday we drove to the border of Illinois (where Beth's friend lives), left our car, and took the train downtown, and checked into our hotel, which was right by the corn cob buildings. Seriously, this was the view from our window:

We then walked (in the rain) down to Water Tower Place, ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (yum!), walked around for a while until it had mostly stopped raining, and then headed back to our hotel. We enjoyed the complimentary wine and snacks, and then both of us were asleep by about 8:30 because we are party animals.

Tuesday morning we woke up, packed, and left the hotel just after 8:00. We walked a little over a mile and a half, dragging our suitcases, to the Field Museum, where we then spent the next six and a half hours looking at everything. Mummies and dinosaurs and giant bugs and stuff from Ancient China and Ancient Aztecs and more mummies and a million animals (real but stuffed). The animal section seemed to go on forever and was organized like a maze - we went there at the end of the day, totally got lost, and eventually were just hopelessly searching for a exit. (Seriously, if you were ever in the animal section when a fire broke out, you might as well give up, because you'd never find an exit in time.) The museum was amazing and overwhelming and incredibly fascinating and also exhausting. 

Eventually we dragged ourselves to the train station, got our car, and headed back to the city for the concert!

U2 is just my favorite. Band. Ever. I love them. I've been to several of their concerts now, and they never fail to make me really, really happy. I love their music. I love that they're so completely fighting for the underdog and for justice. And i just think that all of the band members are adorable. 

This was the "Experience" part of the "Innocence and Experience" tour. The "Innocence" part was a couple of years ago, and when Beth and i went to that concert, we were sitting so that we could totally not see the giant screen at all. This time we had perfect seats to see everything, and i kept thinking, "I feel so sorry for the people sitting in those sections, because the screen is SO COOL." 

On the down side, they were experiencing technical difficulties at the beginning, so they started the concert an hour late, which meant that our very late drive home was even later, and we finally got home at about 4:00 in the morning. Waking up at 7:00 was brutal, and i was fairly exhausted all day, but it was totally worth it.