St. Patrick's Day, Dublin Style

     This past weekend, Ireland celebrated the biggest tourist scheme of this age: St. Patrick's Day.  St. Patrick's Day is a traditionally Irish holiday honoring St. Patrick, who (as we all know), drove the snakes out of Ireland.  This somehow morphed into the biggest day of drinking known to man, which then turned into the biggest tourist attraction Ireland has ever known.
    The official celebration lasts three days, but the tourists start arriving a week beforehand.  Tourists have always been a nuisance, but it gets exponentially worse around the Sunday of St. Patrick's Day. Apparently, once you visit a city, you lose all ability to walk properly; tourists walk agonizingly slowly, and tend to wander around the sidewalk and admire the pubs and shops recently painted with cheesy leprechauns as though they represented the "real Ireland."  News flash: no, Ireland is not normally plastered over with leprechauns, shamrocks, and green things.  This was all done expressly for your arrival, you slow-walking tourists who won't get out of my way when I'm already late for a class. Please stop gawking and embarrassing yourselves.
    To be fair, I can also be a tourist in Dublin when I choose.  I just don't choose to do so that often.  I did, however, make an exception for this particular weekend.
     Anyway, my Cornell friend Grace arrived in Dublin Saturday morning and immediately shipped off to a day tour of the Cliffs of Moher (see previous blog post for my own expeditions there).  That night, I headed to St. Stephen's Green to check out some of the festivities with my other study abroad friends.  We stumbled upon a carnival, got excited when we saw the Ferris Wheel, and paid an exorbitant fee to ride said Ferris Wheel. It was totally worth it.

Aforementioned Ferris Wheel.

    On the way home, we noticed that some of the important buildings now were the subjects of light displays in (guess what color!) green.

The Front Gate of Trinity College, now decorated with a green claddagh ring.

The Taioseach's office, now covered in sickly green.

    The next morning was St. Paddy's Day.  We woke up early, procured some green, white, and orange face paint (the colors of Ireland's flags), made some eggs, and got ready for the parade.

All ready for the parade! See the face paint?

Grace and I decided to go hardcore, and painted our lips too.

    We were then ready for the parade.  Now, the first important thing to know about the parade is that no Irish people actually attend unless they have young children.  Generally, for St. Paddy's Day, Irish people cloister themselves in their homes or local pubs to avoid the crowds of tourists.  The second important thing to know is that if you say "St. Patty's Day," you will automatically mark yourself out as a tourist.  It's "St. Paddy's Day"--the "d" is crucial.
   We weren't expecting any Irishmen at this parade, and we were not disappointed.  Almost every person attending the parade, and even in the parade, was not Irish.  The first part of the parade was the People's Parade, where anyone who signed up beforehand could march.  This mostly included savvy tourists who planned ahead and signed up.  The second part of the parade was the "real" part, and here I saw more American high school marching bands than I've ever seen in the States.

So many arms.  Good for doing dishes!

Brazilian belly dancers....so cold, the poor things.

One of the many American high school marching bands.

It's a lip!

Ernest Shackleton, on his quest to the North Pole.

       The parade was great fun despite being overrun by tourists, but we were exhausted afterwards, so went home to eat and take catnaps before heading over to the House (where other study abroad students live).  The entire Trinity Trampolining team was there, and it was loads of fun.  Not only was it interesting to watch their methods of imbibing copious amounts of alcohol (they demonstrated the "hour of power" for us, where you take a shot of beer every minute), but they were also quite funny.  Somehow, we all ended up singing the US National Anthem, which the Irish fellows knew, and the Canadian National Anthem, which they also knew, but also the Irish National Anthem, which only they knew.  It was all in Irish, so I don't feel too bad for my ignorance.
     After awhile at the House, a few of us went on to another party with the Dance Society.  True to its form, there was loads of dancing.  At first it was typical "club" music that I'm terrible at dancing to--I just look so awkward--but it somehow morphed into Bollywood and the Jackson 5.  It turns out that I'm also a terrible Bollywood dancer, but it's much more fun to dance to anyway.
   I collapsed into bed around 3am, then woke up at 6:45 to bring Grace to her bus to the airport.  It was raining, which for the first time I was grateful for--it washed off all the vomit on the sidewalks.  After the crazy night before, the city was completely deserted.  As of now, some straggler tourists still remain, but it is much easier to get to class on time once the hungover majority streamed out of the city on Monday.  My verdict?  It was a good St. Patrick's Day, although it somehow didn't feel authentic. I guess I'll just have to stay here another year to experience a "genuine" St. Patrick's Day!