Who's Patty?

After all the parents, Trash Boys, Karen's friends, and snakes left, I had a week to relax before what the people here so eagerly referred to as: Patty's Day. Dublin was peaceful, but it was the calm before the storm.













During the week, excitement continued at The Helix as usual. I saw my photos and words come to life in new flyers and posters that were printed, and I sat in at a recording studio to hear the commercial I wrote go to air.

When Friday finally rolled around, I went to the airport to pick up Thesman who was in from London spending the weekend. While waiting in the airport, I saw this kid walk out of the terminal wearing this obnoxious gigantic green hat and I thought to myself, 'Thank God that's not Kevin'.....turns out it was. Silly of me to expect anything less.













St. Patrick's Day is a 5-day festival in Dublin. There's a parade, street fairs, carnivals, performances, music...it's an all out party. And we didn't miss a minute of it.

















Friday night we crawled (read: bar hopped) along with the rest of the city. Kara, Kate, Mo, Pete, some visitors here, some friends there, but the basics were the same. I'm not sure what McKee's doing in this picture, but I seem to remember her telling a story about a former boyfriend? Maybe?













Most importantly I got to meet Megan's friend Charlotte who was in Dublin doing super top secret re-con work that I mysteriously knew about...

























The best part of the night was hearing this band at the Vat House play songs we all knew, and for obvious reasons. Singing along by yourself is fun for sure, but singing along with a few hundred others is a lot more satisfying.













The most overwhelmingly obvious difference in Dublin though was the amount of Americans. I heard more people without accents (to my ears) this weekend than I do at Port Authority. And even without hearing them they became so easy to spot. Little details have become so obvious in pointing out my own kind, like how someone wears a baseball hat, or the kind of jeans they have on, even their mannerisms. Don't mistake this for shallow material stereotyping, because it's really apparent observations to everyone, and it's not a bad thing, it's just interesting how we see ourselves when we haven't had the chance to look in a few months.













Saturday, Kevin and I headed into town to see some of the festivals. This duo on the bikes outside St Stephens Green had a nice crowd. Then we walked to the carnival, which by St. Ambrose standards was tiny, and just had a nice afternoon in general. Before dinner, we stopped in at Keating's, a bar inside a church...not made to look like a church, but what was formerly an actual church.













We had dinner at Mexico to Rome, a Spanish/Italian fusion restaurant, and in my opinion, the two are better off staying as far away from each other as possible. Then we headed out for the night, even though we were just exausted.

Sunday I visited Guinness for my no-less-than 3rd time, and hopefully my last. How many times can one person learn about barley-water-yeast-and hops?!? Jeez. Sunday night I put Kevin back on a plane to London and returned to my apartment where the internet was out. That made for some nice reflecting time. Not really. But it did give me a chance to look at this picture over and over again...
















Oh man that's a good laugh. Final observation: people here canNOT dance. At all. They're called HIPS, folks! USE THEM! "(squeek, squeek) I think he said oil can....oil can?"

Peace out!