Weekend in Review

I'm having one of those still high from the weekend kind of Mondays. Our weekend was a busy one, but fun of course. It started with a stop at our local farmer's market in a historic district slightly to the north of our apartment called Printer's Row. A very small showing due to the rainy weather, perhaps, though this is one of the lesser known markets in Chicago. Even so we picked up veggies, flowers (not quite as bountiful as the ones you can pick up in Seattle, but charming nonetheless) and rye bread. We decided to stop by a cafe nearby...yes a place within walking distance with local coffee. Thank goodness that didn't take too much longer to find! (Apologies to the now struggling Starbucks, you just aren't that tasty or interesting.)

After dropping off our stuff at home, it was off to the Pitchfork music festival. It's a 3-day fest, but I grabbed tickets for Saturday only. These where purchased a while back, shortly after we knew when we were going to move. It's a little festival compared to Bumbershoot, with less need to move around. The two main stages were right next to each other (a fact I found somewhat annoying when the next band could be heard tuning up during the preceding band's set. ugh.) We saw some okay bands, but nothing really stood out for us. I was a little disappointed that we did not manage to stay until animal collective performed. I suppose we are getting a little old for the festival scene, and like to do things like...I dunno...leave before thousands of people are trying to use public transit at the same time, or we get covered in mud. But I don't want to sound like we didn't have a good time, it was a pleasant day.

What I really appreciated about Pitchfork was that there was an actual selection of vegan food options. Vegan festival food options. Yay. There was even a vegan ice cream booth, a local company called temptation. Local veggie restaurant The Chicago Diner had a booth and several other booths went out of their way to point out that they catered to vegan-ness. And the beer wasn't bad either.

And what I really enjoyed at pitchfork was the craft event Depart-ment and Flatstock. I love flatstock, the annual screenprinted poster sale. We caught it last year at Bumbershoot, and I was so happy to see it here at Pitchfork. I end up going through the booths three or four times perplexed about which designs I like the best, what I absolutely need and what I actually have space for. I'll have to write a more extensive post about my favorites later this week.

So not to be out done by Saturday, Sunday saw exploration of a garden filled neighborhood up north hosting the Sheffield Garden Walk/Festival. We hopped on an el once again and checked out some cute (and small) gardens. And the neighborhood. And stopped in a restaurant for some drinks before hoping back on an el to go home. Such a pleasant weekend!