St. Patrick's Day!

We began our St. Patrick's Day celebration with the evening before. Since everyone has St. Patrick's Day off work that is the night for late night fun. So after our relaxing day of touring Wicklow, we gussied up and hit the town. We did a mini-pub-crawl from Harcourt street down to Grafton Street, seeing some traditional Irish music at one pub and drinking way too much Guinness as usual. Dawson Pub - of "probably the tiniest pub in the world" fame - even got us for one pint.

Then it was on to Cafe en Seine to meet up with the Spainards (David's friends were visiting from Spain). Cafe en Seine isn't exactly Irish, but a large bar on Dawson Street with great crowds and dancing. That's Irish enough, plus, the lines had started forming outside every bar and we felt it was too late to move to another pub. So, that's where we stayed for a few hours until closing. It was all fun and games, until Siobhan had notice her purse had been stolen from the purse/jackets pile. This could have been more disasterous since she was traveling to Lisbon the morning after St. Patrick's Day. But luckily, her passport wasn't in her bag,.So though it was a pain, and very traumatic at 3 in the morning, the world didn't end. We all chipped in to get her enough travel money since banks are closed St. Patrick's Day and her debit card was in the purse. And she ended up having a good time in Lisbon. We avoided a few bar fights dealing with suspected purse theives and headed home. It's amazing how many suspected purse theives there are at 3am when you have a several drunk American and Spainards searching for a stolen purse. No cabs were to be found with these crowds and the train stopped at 1am, so we walked most the way home before finally finding a cab. This meant our group slowly got separated with several distractions on the street like hot dog vendors, girls, and anything shiny. Eventually everyone got home even if one not-to-be-named person did walk the LUAS tracks all the way home so he wouldn't get lost. Smart, except it is a 500 Euro fine. Luckily he wasn't noticed. But we all made it home for some attempts at a board game by 5am.

After such a fun night, I wasn't sure everyone would be up for St. Patrick's Day. But that's why they were all here, so everyone got up and moving by 11am. Although no one would have moved as fast if I hadn't mentioned the parade was starting at noon. Angie leapt out of bed and got everyone moving. I've never seen somone so excited by parades. Unfortunately our group couldn't get that many people awake and dressed in time to see it live so we had to settle for the telecast. Richard made some green mimosas and not-green Bloody Marys and we got the day officially started. Sarah, Siobhan and her brother, Kevin, joined us for breakfast and then we headed to St. Stephen's Green. We hit the Duke, Stag's Head, the Bankers (for those who couldn't get into Dame Lane) and Dame Lane. I'll let the rest of the day's story be told in pictures. I only wish I had pictures of the drunk people that couldn't get into Dame Lane stealing sandwiches and arguing with the bouncer about why they should be let in. But we had great weather, great friends, great Guinness. It was another perfect St. Patrick's Day.

  

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2010