St. Paddy's Day: Dublin Style

This was our first official St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, and we were really looking forward to seeing how the actual holiday is celebrated in the place of it's origin.  After all, St. Patrick was the one who evidently brought Christianity to Ireland so...let's celebrate!

In Dublin, there's a massive St. Paddy's Day parade through the center of town, which we'd heard mixed reviews about.  I've heard that it's a "total buzzkill and a letdown" and we heard that it was "absolutely insane, you HAVE to go!"  So...we decided to check it out.

We woke up bright and early on Sunday morning, got ready for the day in our green attire and silly St. Paddy's Day paraphernalia, and I ran across the street to my local shop for a couple of coffee cups with lids.  Why?  To put beer in, of course!  Drew had bought some Carlsbergs in a can the day before and we loaded up our backpack full of beer and headed into town.  It was cold and rainy (DUH) but that didn't get us down.  No siree.  Not on a day like today.

Just having a cup of coffee, watching the parade.
(JK!  It's not coffee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Decked out.

Crazies.

Hey look!  A dancing monkey float.

A strapping young Irishman.

We watched the parade (what we could see) for a little while, saw a few floats, saw 20+ high school bands from the States, met up with a few pals, got a delicious Lebanese lunch (the only place that wasn't crowded with ridiculous tourists - and we were NOT tourists, I'll have you know), and set up shop at O'Neill's with several of our friends for an afternoon of craziness and debauchery and fun.

A Lebanese beer - just what everyone drinks in Ireland on St. Paddy's Day.

Me and Tracy at O'Neill's.

Myself, Tracy, and Breanne with some kook who took a likin' to Tracy.

Just clownin'.

Drew and Lindsay (but we also just referred to her as "Weirdo" whenever she had that damn hood pulled up.)
Side note: Drew would tell the story of he and Lindsay dating in 8th grade and her infamous AOL Instant Messenger breakup throughout the day to anyone who would listen.  People ate that shit up.)

Everytime we'd say "Hey quick!  Let's get a picture of the 4 of us!" someone would jump in.  Ah well.  That's our friend Aaron making silly eyes at Lindsay.

A lot of the gals: Tracy, Kathleen, me, Breanne, and one of my besties here, Lauren.

More silliness.

Kim (Aaron's wife), their friend, Drew, Lauren.

I think I was trying to capture Drew and Kathleen having what looked like a deep conversation here, but I can't remember.

Drew and Lauren, who are best friends too.

Hook 'em!

Kathleen and Lauren bonding.

I met this guy and he went to Westpoint with Clay!  Who knew.  Small world.

Drew and his girls.

More b-fries.

Collage of craziness!

Kathleen wearing Drew as a backpack.

Instagram collages of the day.

My overall assessment of St. Paddy's Day in Dublin: really fun.  Really awesome.  Really silly.  Really crazy.  People here and abroad enjoy St. Paddy's Day because it's a fun loving day with no real agenda, except drinking!  Any city can do it, but it did feel a bit more "special" doing it up right in it's birthplace.  It may not have had the most elaborate parade and they may not dye the River Liffey green, but it's definitely the origin of the party.  And between the pubs, live music, and loads of people, it was definitely more authentic than any other city.  (Sorry Greenville.)  It's a great time to be in Dublin.  Like Munich has Oktoberfest (hopefully a future post on that one), Pamplona has the bulls, Sevilla has Feria...Ireland has St. Paddy's Day.  And it didn't disappoint.  It was a damn good time and I'm glad me and my boo got to experience it here with my best friends from home and abroad.  

Visitors Part 4: Lindsay and Kathleen!

My other best friends came to visit for St. Patrick's Day!  Yayyyy!  I've been looking forward to this since Christmas and I couldn't believe the time had come.  Also because I'd been so frazzled at work that I could hardly focus on anything else.  But more on that later.

This trip felt a little different initially because we really had no set plans or agenda, no reservations anywhere, no decided St. Patrick's Day plans, no nothing.  Just fun togetherness time that would develop organically - and it did, seamlessly!

The girls had a hellacious time getting to Dublin, as their flights were delayed, cancelled, missed; they got in late without baggage for a full 24 hours, they hadn't slept, but they had the best attitudes and were champs about the whole thing.

Yay!!  They're here!  

Saturday morning: the most crowded Guinness Storehouse tour the world has ever seen.   But fun.

Sexy gills with the mountains in the background!  (Though you can't really see them.)

We had lunch at The Hairy Lemon, walked around Grafton Street, stopped by Trinity College, napped a bit, and got ready for some drinks at my friend Lauren's house (with a bunch of our other friends and all THEIR friends that were in town). 

My fellow Real Housewives of Dublin: Kim, me, Kristin, Lauren.

As we were leaving Lauren's, we got phone calls from the airport couriers alerting us at they were at the apartment with Lindsay and Kathleen's bags!  VICTORY!  Drew took off from Lauren's in the fastest dead sprint that I've seen since our jaunt through the Paris airport in October, and the Lake Highlands basketball court circa 2003.  Holy smokes.  Lindsay and Kathleen weren't too far behind and I was trying to breathe through my laughter.  Funny stuff.

Two exhausted girls with their bags.  (Kathleen is kissing her's.)

A Drew sandwich/celebratory hug in the elevator. 

After dinner, we went to The Stag's Head for drinks and live music, as per usual.

KP showcasing her beer.

Cheers!

Lindsay and Drew gettin' close.  Not sure what's going on here.

Some guys at the bar nearby tried to get both of the girls dancing.  This is Lindsay protesting.

And this is her giving in and dancing a short jig to shut them up.

Now onto Kathleen!

 We then met up with the people from Lauren's at a techno dance club I'd never been to or heard of with a €10 cover that I still owe L&K.  Drew was in hell as it wasn't his scene but I was livin' it up on the dance floor, pretending I was 21 again.  Sigh.

We crashed and burned at home and prepared ourselves for St. Patrick's Day: Dublin Style!  More on that next time.  Great first day with my pals!

Skip and Tracey!

Gosh, it's been forever again and I've let my very few readers down.  We just wrapped up the final week of our 4th set of visitors in a month and we're slowly attempting to return to our normal routine.  Even though a "normal routine" doesn't really exist anymore as I've been trying to host visitors and work at the same time for a month and don't know what I'm doing with my life most of the time.  More on that later.

Today I'm posting some pics of our visit a few weeks ago with Uncle Scott and Aunt Tracey!  They came for Scott's 50th birthday and hit up London, Paris, and Edinburgh before they finished up their amazing week of travel with a weekend in Dubs with us.

After a couple of pints at Kehoe's, we went to Bear for some steak!
(This is also where they started pulling out their Union Jack wallet and waved it around for all the Irish to see.  Just kidding.  Kind of.  We had to alert them that this may not be well received.)
:)

I had to work on Friday but I DID happen to see these two walking to Trinity on my way to work!  What a pleasant surprise.  They went to Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christchurch and St. Patrick's Cathedral, shopped a bunch, and had a delightful afternoon tea at their hotel, The Shelbourne.  Balllla!

Classy couple alert!

They stopped by our apartment on Friday evening for a class of wine so we could show them our humble abode.  And I do mean HUMBLE.  Then we went for drinks and pizza at our fave places, duh.

Solo shot in the apartment.

Paulie's!   The Union Jack wallet made an appearance here too.  Ha! 

S&T headed to the Guinness Storehouse on Saturday morning while we strolled around in the sun, and we met them at The Brazen Head for the beginning of a fun afternoon of day drinking.  Sorry not sorry.

Skip with some Guinness at the Gravity Bar.

The Brazen Head for some beers and snacks!

Over to Temple Bar for photo opps and more beer.  Shout out to Papa Solomon and his barbershop quartet song about Temple Bar!

Cheers!

The gals at Gogarty's Pub for some live music.

Just a young couple in love, strolling along the river.

Two sexy Solomons.

This couple is a GOOD TIME and they did it up right in Dubs.  They were so much fun and so generous and very funny and we had a wonderful time with them!  Scott and I now text weekly reminiscing about the trip and to catch up, which I love.  Thanks for a fun weekend, S&T!  Come back SOON!