Lollapalooza

Yay, I'm back from Chicago, and had a wonderful weekend with Laura. I took off Friday and headed back to my apartment on Thursday night after work, which was nice because I forgot how much I missed home. I barely had time to get my stuff in the door and buy a bottle of wine (if you're looking for a cheap and excellent red I highly recommend Robert Mondavi's Pinot Noir) before leaving with Colleen and Amity for Mexican food. Yum, it was tasty! I had had actually had a burrito for lunch but the food was so good I didn't mind a repeat :) We sat around and chatted for a while until Laura got into the city, and then she and I headed back to my apartment. I guess it was still pretty early but we were both exhausted so we just relaxed and caught up and went to bed early.

So Friday was the first big day of the music festival. For some reason I woke up really early (honestly I can't sleep in these days!) so I decided to walk down to Hyde Park Produce and get some breakfast supplies. Came back and made some pancakes, eggs, and peaches and raspberries, and Laura, Colleen, and I ate and caught up on some missed tv from last week (Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance, two guilty pleasures). A typical lazy weekend morning I've missed this summer, so that was nice. Eventually Laura and I made it downtown to Lollapalooza, which was A LOT OF FUN. On Friday we saw: Louis XIV, The Black Keys, Cat Power, a few minutes of The Raconteurs, Stephen Malkmus and the Jinks, and a few minutes of Radiohead. I liked Cat Power the best. We were both pretty exhausted by the end, so we decided to go to Adobo Grill (more Mexican!) for dinner, and then we met up with Colleen and Amity to go dance at Barleycorn. We didn't stay too long, and called it a night pretty early, which was just fine by me!

On Saturday I had to wake up really early again (this time not naturally though) to run...14 miles. I actually ran 14 last week too even though I was only scheduled for 12, and even though this week I was only scheduled for 13 I decided to keep my length constant. It was actually really nice running along the lake, and I would have beaten my time from last week if my ipod hadn't run out of battery like 2/3 of the way through...I really suck at running without music because I just get bored and start daydreaming instead of getting energized by the beat! So we'll see how that goes during the actual race when I can't wear my headphones... I think there'll be enough excitement to carry me through though--I hope! :) But yeah! So now I know I could officially run a half marathon in less than 2 hours, so now a whole marathon in 4 hours doesn't seem SO impossible, though still pretty challenging. Anyway, came back and showered, then Laura and I headed out to one of my favorite brunch places, Yolk, where I had some delicious cream cheese and raspberry stuffed french toast. Yum! Then we headed over to Grant Park for Lolla Day 2, where we saw: Dr. Dog, MGMT, Brand New, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and Wilco. I liked Dr. Dog, MGMT, and Wilco the best--I think I would have liked Wilco more than I did actually, if my back hadn't been hurting like a MOTHER. So I'll have to download some of their stuff off iTunes. Oh, and in between there we took the L out to Aurelio's for dinner--YUMM! I was really excited; the super six got me all revved up. So anyway we headed back to my apartment and I lay down on the floor to ease the pain in my back while Laura got a shower, then I cleaned up and we got ready for Colleen's party. Once we were ready (and had watched a few minutes of Titanic on TV...man, looking back on it the special effects are really insanely obvious and a bit cartoony; somehow I didn't notice this back in 1997), we were off to Krem. It actually had a really fun vibe this time...maybe the music was louder or I just had a better dance partner (Laura always gets me in the mood to dance...and like no one is watching either) so I enjoyed myself immensely.

Didn't end up getting back until very late in the morning, so we slept in on Sunday, and kind of lay around for a while chatting and watching Pretty Woman and eating Shells 'n' Cheese before heading back out to the final Lolla installment. Day 3 was probably my favorite, where we saw: Blues Traveler, Gnarls Barkley, The National, Mark Ronson, and Kanye West. I would have liked to have seen more of Mark Ronson, Girl Talk, and Flogging Molly, but there were just too many bands packed into tight time frames. Anyway, Kanye was AWESOME--the show was so packed with energy and he was bouncing around the stage almost the entire time. The crowd was going crazy and really fed off all of his energy. We weren't actually planning on staying through his show at all; we had just heard a rumor that Obama was going to be introducing him, so we really only went to see Obama, but shucks he wasn't there..though after a few songs we forgot all about it :) After that we made a mass exit, sunburnt, tired, but still cheering and happy. It was a really fun weekend, and after some much needed food and a long bus ride home, we finally packed up and headed home. Of course I didn't get back to the lake until like 3 in the morning, so that made it 3 nights in a row with 4 hours of sleep, so Monday was a bit rough. But yay, what fun!