Operation U2....DENVER....Day 3

So the day of the concert is here!! We woke to a beautiful, sunny morning. I was meeting an old friend, Jake Keck, at a place he recommended, The Coral Room in Highland Park. I enjoy the "hole in the wall" places...and this one was perfect!!! I enjoyed a shrimp omelette with tomato and avovado. It was incredible! We went back to the hotel for awhile and then went to eat at the 16th Street Mall at Mad Greens. This place needs to come to Indiana...ASAP! It was so awesome (for those of you who like lettuce.) Anyhow, it's set up kind of like Subway. You stand behind the glass and they put the toppings on, mix them in a bowl, pour the dressing, toss it, pour it in to the second bowl...and waaalla! An amazing salad! I choose, of course, avocado, strawberries, croutons, and bacon with ranch dressing. We walked around, and after mustering up our confidence on how far we had come with the whole "public transportation" thing, did a dry run of what we would hope to sucessfully acomplish that night. So, we hoped the mall ride to Union Station, and blended in pretty well with the locals. Mom remembered to hold on when the bus took off this time. We met a man in a black jacket who said "you goin to the concert? I've got roundtrip lightrail tickets here" Mom proceeded to ask why he was selling them if the machine he was standing next to was also selling them....anyhow...we checked...he's legit. We were too dump to figure out how to use the lightrail ticket machine...and after it telling us it was going to be $16.00 to go 1 mile rountrip, we decided to pay the man the $9 for his tickets. They worked like a charm. We went back to the hotel for a bit to catch some rest before the big show. We made our way to the stadium and everything went smooth (thank goodness!!) I sat next to a wonderful couple (mid 30'sish) that were hilarious. Super nice...great conversation. We chatted the entire night. It's nice to sit next to people with common interests! U2 rocked it out...in a huge way. The playlist had changed tremendously from the 2 shows we saw previously on this tour, so I was excited to see what they played. I'd say the surprise of the night was Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me. I was probably one of a very small handful of people who actually knew the song. It's from "Batman Returns"...with Val Kilmer. You had to buy the soundtrack (which I did) because U2 didn't release the song on their own album. This is when Seal's "Kiss" came out...that's how long ago this was. And it's really hard rock....so it's not like a lot of their other stuff. But...it's a great song and was a big surprise to see it on their playlist. Now, for the retarded moment. We made our way out of the stadium and were super lucky to be located directly inside of the main gate. We made a mad dash for the lightrail with about 100,000 other people frantically rushing the gate. We thought we were on a roll...made it on the first lightrail out. As we were getting on, mom asked "why are there other people standing there, not taking this one?" I figured they were taking another line. Then we realized, clearly after the fact, that it was going the wrong direction. So, instead of making 2 stops and then hopping the free mall ride back, we had to ride that dumb thing clear to the end and back...adding about 45 minutes on our originally 20 minute ride home. I was WIPED OUT by the time we got back at 1:30am, but I still had to pack and got a few hours of sleep before having to catch a fly to Salt Lake City. Thus, concluding my Day 3.