Every November Chicago’s Lights Festival parades down the Mag Mile to ring in the holiday. Conveniently, the parade has always  fallen on my birthday weekend.  I was especially anxious to commence this weekend’s activities since I had 3 papers due consecutively Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday!

As I’m sure you’re all aware, this was also the opening weekend for Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Don’t judge me!)  Friday, my friends and I decided to go to dinner at the Grand Lux Café.  It’s basically the same thing as The Cheesecake Factory, except it’s on the corner of Michigan and Ontario, and has an awesome view of the city. The best part of dinner was sharing a basket of beignets for dessert (fried dough rolled in powder sugar with chocolate sauce on the side— yes, please!)

Following dinner, we then headed over to River East 21 to catch the movie.  I’m still not sure how I feel about it…

Saturday, my friend and I decided to hit up some vintage thrift stores in Andersonville.  One really cool store is the Woolly Mammoth.  Its more oddities and weird art collaborations, but they have vintage stuff too.  They also have a taxidermy section, but it’s not all that creepy since they as they dress the animals up. One of the deer heads on the wall was wearing a tie and glasses!  It’s definitely worth checking out.

Saturday evening was the parade. My friends and I basically missed the beginning as we were stuck under Michigan Ave. trying to find stairs that were not blocked off.  After heading north a couple of blocks, we successfully managed to get street level, just in time to catch Mickey waving to the crowds.

All in all, it was a fun weekend!

All photos by: Raven Icaza