St. Patrick's Day Weekend

St. Paddy's Day in Ireland is probably not what most people in the United States would expect.  Between the stereotypes of Irish drinking and how St. Paddy's Day is celebrated in the US, it would probably be expected that St. Patricks Day centers around drinking.  For most it is far from that.  We had school off and it was a bank holiday.  Many people take the day to relax and spend time with their families or go to church services.  There is also a parade through the city and even the small towns each have their own parade.

My friend Caitlin who grew up on the street next to me came to visit this weekend too because she is studying in Scotland for the semester.  Ireland decided to be foggy and push her flight back and then it ended up landing in Dublin instead of Cork, which meant that after a bus ride she would get to Cork around 4am.  We decided that she would just stay at the airport to try and sleep a bit and then take a taxi to my apartment at 7 the next morning.

I had a paper due so we went on an adventure to the library on campus to try to print out my paper and turn it in to start our day.  Then we went to my new favorite cafe to get a coffee and some breakfast.  We took the bus out to Blarney to tour Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney stone.  After that, we looked around the gift stores as well as the Blarney Woolen Mills and decided to have lunch at this big cafe in the basement of one of the hotels in Blarney, next to the Woolen Mills.  After taking the bus back, we stopped at trusty Carroll's gift shop for all your Irish souvenir needs.  We stopped at home for a little bit to relax and regroup and then decided to try a new restaurant with Ana, one of the girls in my study abroad group.  We went to a restaurant called the Woodford and it was amazing!  We hopped across the river for a pint at the Franciscan Well Brewery across the street and called it an early night.

Ogee Headed Window! Learned about these in Archeology

The next day we went out with a group of the girls from my group to explore the St. Patrick's Day weekend festivities.  There was an amazing market on St. Patricks Street and we wandered around for a while and returned again on Sunday.  There was a lot of really good food choices and live music and the street was closed off to cars.  After wandering there we walked around the city a bit and then decided to sit next to the river to relax since it was sunny and warm.  That night, we went to another crowd favorite, An Spailpin Fanach to listen to live traditional music.

Caitlin and I starting off the day

Yummy Sausage, potatoes and roasted veggies for lunch

Myself, Tierney and Steph all excited to eat our lunch

Homemade Ice Cream

Sunday we wandered and went to the Shandon Tower to climb to the top and then ring the bells. We stopped by the market again and then I took Caitlin to the bus station to catch a bus to the airport.  I spent the rest of the day working on papers and other school work.

The lovely pink building is Leeside where I live

For St. Patrick's Day, we got together as a group and decided to go to the parade together.  This was a weird experience for me for many reasons.  First, the parade is different than what we would normally expect, it was more relaxed with either smaller floats or just people walking in groups.  It was difficult for us to see and we were getting hungry so about half way through the parade a few of us left to get lunch.  I'm glad that I saw the parade, but as my Irish friends told me before I went, its pretty boring and most people that actually live in Cork don't go unless they have kids.

The most people I've seen in Cork ever

The other reason this was a weird experience for me was I had my first big case of identity crisis.  I spent a lot of the weekend getting really annoyed by all of the tourists who were walking around, not knowing where they are going, talking loudly and just plain getting in my way.  All I wanted to do was get some groceries, gosh dang it!  But then I realized, I'm kind of a tourist here in Cork, maybe not to the same extent because I am here for 5 months, but I will automatically get lumped into the tourist category once I open my mouth and they hear my very un-Irish accent.  This was a really weird moment for me and it made me realize that Cork is kind of becoming my home and it will be really weird to not live here anymore.

Overall, St. Patrick's Day was a success and I was so happy to have my first visitor in Cork!