Willie Torres and the 911 Mambo Orchestra.

We headed into the city around midday to see the Chicago Air and Water Show, after parking Near Grant Park we promptly managed to walk in the wrong direction as there are no signs to Chicago's second biggest annual event, so we only arrived for the last 1 ½ hours of the show, we did however have a beautiful walk through the park and alongside lake Michigan which is the same size as the North Sea although Mae discovered that her sandals are not good for walking long distances! Like all American cities Chicago is very clean and there are lovely floral displays dotted about the place. As we were walking along we saw several military jets and a stunt plane, as well as several dubious pieces of art work including 50 pairs of rusty legs about 15 foot tall and a GINORMOUS Marilyn Monroe about 30 foot high (Mae confirmed that she was wearing knickers!) We arrived at a lakeside beach just in time to see some skydivers and what seems to be the American version of our red arrows. ( although being American the obviously have bigger planes and are much louder!)) After the display we headed back to Grant Park as there was a live Salsa Band Due on Stage at 5pm, there was also a free lesson from 4-5. One of a festival on every thursday, friday, saturday and sunday night throughout the summer where you can learn all sorts of dances and then dance them to live bands, all of which is completely free!! Willie Torres and the 911 Mambo Orquestra were on stage for about 2 hours and we managed to practice our On2 as he is from New York and played a lot of suitable music. There must have been 500 people there to either watch or dance and the floor was packed with people throughout his set. The floor itself was extremely good especially since it is outside and seems to be made of planks of coated wood or perhaps plastic imitation. We then got changed and headed back to Club Excalibur for the last party night of the congress. We arrived in plenty of time for the Shows which included a qualifier for the World Latin Cup in Las Vegas and a performance by Juan Matos (And partner). There were also plenty of performers from Chicago and in general the quality of the dancing was very high. We felt like we were dancing substantially better that we have for a while and even managed to convince the Bachata DJ to play a couple of Kizombas for us. (YAY!!!!!!!) We left about 3am and grabbed some food before heading back, the trip was much easier with our car, getting home about 5.00am.