Sunday, March 21, 2010

St. Patrick's Day

The Legend: Patrick was once a slave in Ireland, but he ran away. He was later converted to Christianity. At night, he would dream that the people of Ireland were calling him back. Convinced that God was speaking to him, he returned to Ireland to convert all of the unbelievers to Christianity. The devil was so angry at Patrick that he threw tons of snakes at him. Patrick thrust his staff into the ground and all the snakes fell through the hole it created. That is why there are no snakes in Ireland.

The reality: St. Patrick's Day is a national holiday in Ireland, and lots of parades are held. The biggest is in Dublin. Everyone seems to wear some type of green, including children dressed up as little dragons. I saw everything from green viking hats to green cowboy hats to green Indian headdresses. People lined the streets and climbed on top of every conceivable object to get a good view of the parade, which started off with a stiletto heels race. I cheered for the man in drag in stilettos. He pulled them off rather well.

The parade had little to do with Ireland and a lot to do with colors of every sort. It had a circus, at least four marching bands (including one from North Carolina), giant bugs that snorted smoke, African drummers, dancers of all ages, an Indian prince, an African queen, and every type of facepaint imaginable.

After the parade, I decided to head into McDonald's for a shamrock shake. You know it's bad when McDonald's has to have security. The top two floors were guarded-only customers with food could enter. There were about three hundred people crammed into a one hundred people floor waiting for their food. Good times.

To complete the day, we took a tour of the Guinness factory. I learned everything I could possibly want to know about the brewing process, and discovered there are no samples of Guinness that I actually like. Although, Guinness beer bread is tasty. Real tasty. Made me miss the beer brats from home.

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