Paddy's Not Patty's! Part 1

Hola!

Just hopped off the plane from jolly ol' Ireland, now sitting in London Luton airport waiting for a bus back to Oxford.  A recap of this weekend's adventures:

Friday:  Took four trains and then a ferry across England, Wales, and Ireland with 11+ friends from Oxford.  Played lots of cards. Set foot on Ireland for the first time and realized how many old medieval walls,well-trimmed hedges, and unintelligible accents there were everywhere (unintelligibility level directly proportional to level of alcohol consumed by the Irishman in question). Set up camp at my Irish friend's dad's apartment in DunDrum, a quaint suburb of Dublin. Geared up for the next day which was....

Saturday: St. Paddy's Day in Dublin! Features of the Dublin Paddy's day experience:

• I have never seen a party with so many generations involved.  Got to the pub at about 2 p.m. and we were dodging the strollers being pushed around the bar. Walk on the PACKED streets, and we ran into green-decked grandparents along with the typical teenagers-wearing-things-they-shouldn't-be-wearing. It wasn't only tourists, every Irishmen in the country was in the streets of Dublin (source: Irishman on the subway). 
• I was expecting that the whole wear-full-body-green phenomenon was something that the U.S. had interpreted as something the Irish would do, not something the Irish actually do. WRONG. So much green. They even lit up Trinity College green. In a spurt of unwarranted panic about not enough ridiculous green clothing, I bought this huge green hat that said "Who's your Paddy?" However, speaking pf something that the U.S. interprets as Irish but is not Irish: No green beer (thank goodness!) (it's all we drink in the U.S. on this day).
  
•  St. Paddy. Do not make the mistake of saying/spelling Patty. Do. Not. Apparently Patty is derived from Patricia, which is just not somethin you call an Irish fella, ya hear...particularly a famous one. 
• Did I mention how many people there were out and about? I can't emphasize enough how huge this party was. Filled the streets of Dublin. Put Mardi Gras to shame. And it was sustained. All day and all night the crowd didn't die down. Too cool!

We went to a pub, and then toured around the streets, and then ... another pub.  And then we watched the England v. Ireland Rugby game with every other Irishmen in a standing-room-only pub. Which was not a favorable outcome for Ireland but seemingly did not change the partying plans of anyone (celebrate if you win, drink if you lose= same result). After several more stops and some jigging with random Irishmen we ended the night at a three-floor club with a live brass band playing dubstep music. It was an excellent 12 hours of Paddy's fun in Dublin. 

Sunday: Sidenote Kudos to what must be an excellent Irish street cleaning crew, because when I went home at 3 a.m. it was raining and the streets were coated in beer cans and green paraphenalia. When I was back in the city at 10 a.m. there were hardly any signs of huge party that filled every street in the city the day before. Nice.

The view of Dublin from the top of the Guinness factory, beautiful.

Guinness tour day! After resolving to go with the (less-sleep-deprived) morning sightseers, I dragged myself out of bed and zombied (not a verb? should be) over to the infamous Guinness Storehouse, which was an incredibly well-done museum and tracked how the beer is made and the history of the brand. Did you know that the Guinness factory buys 2/3 of the barley produced in Ireland? I'm sure this useful knowledge will come in handy in some pub trivia night in my life. Because of this, ended up having free hangover Guinness for breakfast and lunch. Regretted this. And then went to another Irish friend's house and was treated to a huge barbecue with lots of dancing (with Irish parents) and dental hygiene tips (from Irish parents). Good food, good friends, good times.

Monday: Found the Kiwis!

But this post is getting long and my bus to Oxford is coming soon so I will post in two parts, stay tuned for adventures in the Irish countryside with the Kiwis and Ziyi and I getting kiss-bombed by Irish lads at a pub on the coast, among other exciting tales...