...the police officer told me to hit him...

The fence we had to climb in order to get
from the car to the parade and back again.

As many of you know, I am in the States for a couple of weeks. I made a quick visit to LA for a family Bat Mitzvah, and now I am in Chicago.  I have been busy eating and drinking and seeing friends and family.  Today, though, I took an adventure to the city for PRIDE, the Chicago Pride Parade.  The weather was perfect, I found a decent parking spot--we had to pay and climb a fence (so Israeli)--we had a great view of the Parade, right in front of The Center on Halstead; it couldn't have been better.  Below are a few of my favorite floats (and a pic from LA).  

Two of the highlights today involved police officers (don't worry; I did not get arrested).  Along the Parade route, there were police officers stationed within the boundaries (where the marchers were, not where the watchers were), and the one stationed near us was great.  Whenever people (marchers or people on balconies) threw beads and they landed in the middle of the street, he would pick them up and throw them to us.  He even started working the crowd, making us scream and cheer, and dance along.  He was rocking the parade and even donned a few beads of his own.

Our awesome police officer!

The second highlight came at the end.  Leaving the area after the Parade was quite a struggle.  There were pedestrians everywhere, and I just couldn't bring myself to run them over.  So slowly but surely, I trudged along.  I came to a road that may or may not have been blocked off to cars and went down it (it wasn't blocked at the point whereI turned).  I came to a few police officers directing traffic, and not only did they wave me on, but when I hesitated for fear of hitting some guy on a bike pulling a wagon-y thing, they cheered me on and gestured wildly.  It was so Israeli when the police officer flat out told me to hit the guy biking against traffic who was in my way.  I didn't, but it made for a good laugh!!

From the Bat Mitzvah!