St. Paddy's Day: Ireland Style

What a weekend! I can honestly put this one down in the books as one of the best in my life. It was a  whole new level of excitement. I have celebrated St. Patrick's Day for as long as I can remember. It was always a different experience in Minnesota, mostly because the weather varied so much from year to year: sometimes it was snowing and around zero degrees, other years it was sunny and in the 50s. I especially loved it when the 17th fell in the middle of the week: I always got to take off school and go to the parade (our family marched in it, whether we signed up to march or not hehe).

1997

1999

2009

Here it was decent weather. For Ireland, anyways. It was on and off raining (typical) and about 45 degrees. I decided against going to Dublin for the day, which I heard was insane, but more like the US on St. Paddy's Day, as so many tourist go there for the day. Instead, we stayed for the local parade in Limerick City. It was great, and more authentic, I like to say. We got to the parade about an hour before it started, and found a place to stand. The parade was so cute: it was a bunch of groups from Limerick, like the boys and girl scouts (they call them something else here, but I can't remember what that is), and the youth sports teams: football (soccer), rugby, even some little hurlers (an Irish sport). It was really cute. A bunch of the groups had dressed up as St. Patricks and walked like that. There were a few marching bands, and a few sets of bagpipers (my favorite were the preteen ones: the only bagpipers you see in the St. Paul Paddy's Day parade are old men haha).

A bunch of St. Patricks! 

Meggan and Callum

We stayed for most of the parade, but we were getting really cold and hungry, so we walked to the first pub we saw. It was a great choice: we left before the parade was finished, so we got a place to sit at Flannery's. We ordered our corned beef sandwiches (which were delicious, by the way), and settled in for the afternoon. We stayed there and just visited (and drank a little, I admit) the entire afternoon. We met some pretty interesting people, I do have to say. I had to favorite encounters. The first was a young boy, ten, named Callum. He was sitting at the bar with his mum, and when she stepped outside for a minute ("She's having a ciggy," Callum said), he came and started chatting with us. There were nine international college girls and the ten year old kid. He was in heaven, to say the least. He was showing us all the cool things he could do, like sticking a coin to his forehead, and posed in pictures like he was a total gangster. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen. By the end of the conversation, we had all  agreed to come back to Flannery's for next year's Paddy's Day festivities, and he told us he was going to marry Meggan. The other person was interesting and funny as well. There was an old Irish man who was sitting at the bar who took it upon himself to mentor us and tell us about life in Ireland. I didn't get to hear much of what he had to say, but Meggan went and sat at the bar with him for a good half hour. He was equally as adorable as Callum.

Free hats :)

After Flannery's, we decided to head back to campus. On our way out, the bar tender handed three of us free green leprechaun hats with red beards attached to them. I was thrilled to get one myself, who doesn't like free hats? (I had also gotten a free shamrock shaped hat on Friday night, when we went to the local Spar-a convenient store-wearing temporary tattoos on our faces and decked out in green. I guess the cashier thought we would enjoy them, which we did). It was only six o'clock, though, and still light outside when we stepped out, so we went to the Burger King down the street for dinner before taking the bus back. When we got back, we were all wiped from the day, so we sat down and watched The Avengers. It was a great way to end the day. The day was amazing, spent with amazing people, and I couldn't have imagined a better St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.

I put together a little video with my pictures and video clips from the parade, just for fun (I got the idea from Callista, who uploaded one to Facebook :)). Hope you guys like it (and I hope it works: I have never tried uploading videos on here before...)

My parents come tomorrow (early in the morning: less than twelve hours!) I am so excited to see them and hope they are going to have a great time, and love Ireland as much as I do! Cheers!