Well, I hope you all enjoyed your St. Paddy's Day, whether you're actually Irish or not.
This year was the first time I celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, and it was the first time I was able to celebrate my boyfriend's birthday with him. Did I mention that my boyfriend was born on St. Patrick's Day AND his name is Patrick, AND he's actually Irish. Anyway, March 17 is a huge deal, in many ways. But to be completely honest, St. Patrick's Day seemed more like a "greener" version of a regular Irish Saturday night. Meaning, loads of people wearing more green than usual.
Now, I was told that what I experienced was a bit scaled down from previous years, but it seems to me that the Irish don't take their holiday to as much of the extremes as the rest of the world. People were dressed in green, even wore little bunches of shamrocks on their jackets (like how we'd wear a poppy back home) but I didn't get the crazy wild feeling of what other countries make it out to be.... now I wasn't celebrating in Belfast or Dublin. I'm sure the major city's had crazy celebrations. But they have too...tourists are expecting leprechauns and green beer!
Instead, I went out to the Down Royal for some horse racing! I have never gone to a horse race track, and from what I saw yesterday, horse racing is a very very popular sport here in the UK and Ireland. People love gambling on horses, and ladies love dressing up to watch. Now, I didn't go to a very fancy horse race, but there are some places that really dress to the nines.
I placed wee bets here and there, but ended up breaking even the first time, and later only lost 6 pounds, so I didn't lose to much! Later we went out for some drinks, watched England play Ireland in a rugby match (which we quickly decided to forget ever happened), watched some traditional Irish music, and drank some more. It was lovely night, and I'm glad I finally experienced this famous day in Ireland, amongst the Irish.
I hope you all had a lovely St. Patrick's Day as well, and that no one got into too much trouble!
Keep Smilin Folks,
M.
It's funny that it's not such a huge deal in Ireland... meanwhile in London (ON) there were riots. Haha. Glad you had a fun day - horse betting is a good way to spend and afternoon. :)
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