st. paddy's day!

Saturday, March 17th

The holiday event of the season has come and gone... and it was awesome!!  St. Paddy's day here in Ireland is a full weekend event followed by a day off of school and work to recover... they sure know how to celebrate here!

As my other posts have outlined, I spent my Paddy's day weekend in Cork with Kristi, Sydney, and Steph. We got up early in the morning to toast the day with a mimosa and head out to the city center to see what the streets were like. Even at 10am, there were tons of people out decked in green! I already had a green shirt and slightly tacky, yet festive, headband... I completed the outfit with a green shamrock painted on my cheek by a woman on the street.

The big event of the morning was the city parade, which started at noon.  We staked out seats around 11am so we could beat all the children to the good ones, and ended up with a great view near the end of the parade.  Here are a few of the highlights of the parade:

The theme of the parade was 'Going for Gold, Cork Games 2012' in honor 

of the olympics, so there were a lot of sports related floats and puppets.

I have no idea what this float was for, but it was for sure the 

most intricate and interesting one I saw

Children from a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)- 

little hurlers and Gaelic footballers!

Of course... what parade is complete without Obama!?

The man himself... St. Patrick!

We watched about an hour and a half of the parade before it started to rain and we decided it was time for a warm pub and a pint!  We went to on of Kristi's favorite pubs, Old Oak, and got a great big booth with a good view of a TV.  Convenient since the Ireland vs. England Rugby match was on that afternoon.  

We collected our obligatory (touristy) green pints or Carlsberg and settled in to watch Ireland get annihilated.  Despite the loss, the atmosphere in the pub was great and I had a ton of fun!

After the game we headed back to Kristi's for some food and a nap before a night on the town.  It was an amazing day, not one that I am likely to forget any time soon, and I'm glad I got to spend it with my ISU girls!