The Swell Season & Blogger event!

Big post tonight, my randomness from last night is g-o-n-e, for now.

Tuesday night Anne and I went to the lovely Chicago Theater for the second of three sold-out concerts with the Swell Season a.k.a. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the indie movie "Once." Oh they also won the Oscar last year from Best Original Song.

Glen is already a star with the band the Frames (which I had not heard of before the concert) but after watching the movie and hearing the Oscar-winning song "Falling Softly" (video below), it moved me to tears so I had to see them live. And last night at their final show, Barack Obama was in the audience, how cool is that? 

The opening act was a super cute, super nervous guy from Kentucky (whose name I didn't catch) who commented that the Chicago Theater crowd was easily "36x larger" than any audience he has ever played before. Random guys were handing out samples of his upcoming CD (from Jewel plastic bags) after he finished playing, but I couldn't grab one in time. Shoot. But I can download the entire concert from a Web site for only $5.95! They gave us cards about it as we were leaving so I'm totally going back to save it to my computer.

It's been a long time since I've been to the lovely Chicago Theater and the sound inside was insanely awesome, the acoustics were amazing. So while we were regulated to the rafter seats, it was still a fun time with beautiful music. I highly recommend checking out the movie and the Swell Season tour if you can. I would definitely see them again.

Taking off for Air One!

I love many things, one of which is shoes made in Italy. Another thing I love is meeting bloggers, especially local ones so tonight, I was invited to nearly combine these loves by attending a blogger event for Air One airlines at Gioco's in the South Loop. And joining me were three lovely Chicago bloggers, Jenn, Joy and Angela. Great company.

Air One is an Italian airline who is starting US routes to Milan this month, but only from Chicago and Boston, so to celebrate the new flights, they hosted a blogger event to mingle and learn more about Italian culture. I do have to disclose that Air One is a client at my company, but I was officially "off the clock" when I attended and I don't work in the department that organized the event.

Marco from Air One talked for a bit about airline and then shared with us some differences in English and Italian cultures. How do Italians spot tourists? Drinking espresso after 10:30 a.m. and/or wearing shorts. I did hear about the "shorts red flag" from friends overseas so I trust him on that one. And they said chef Phil Stefani is creating the flight's menu. Sounds good to me. Air One was even doing a drawing for a free round-trip flight from Chicago to Milan. Fingers crossed that this girl gets chosen (please, please, momma needs a new pair of Italian leather shoes or a Prada bag). Plus it's a partner with Lufthansa and speaking from experience, that is a good airline. German!

We enjoyed some lovely wine (which we couldn't remember the names of so Jenn and I ordered them by numbers 1, 2 and 3) and the food was great too, or as Joy would say as the waiter's approached, "kay." It's tough to pick a favorite from all the nummy options but I would have to say that the fried meatballs and the pesto/mushroom and margarita pizza were the big winners. Plus we got some free SWAG before leaving, which included a new flash drive. Score. That will make a lovely addition for my Lulu. Check out some pictures below.

Four lovely Chicago bloggers

Marco introducing us to Air One (above)

Q&A about how to spot American tourists (below)