Recent emails regarding Tele-BEARS and fall housing have made my year abroad feel a little less like a dream and a little more like a ticking time bomb. When this is over, I need to face the reality of internships, my drained savings account, senior year, and preparations for the “g-word” that happens in just over a year. Not to mention, my coursework has gotten particularly demanding with mid-semester essays and reading piling up. All this pressure has had obvious results: I’ve blown off pretty much all my responsibilities in the interest of frantically checking things off my pre-adulthood bucketlist. Near the top? Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day.
I’d just like to start this post with a couple tips for travelers with similarly grand ambitions:
1. Book early. I don’t mean like a month in advance. I mean like, over winter break. I booked a hotel in late December and was probably in the most reasonably priced place in near town, but it was a 40 minute bus ride from the city centre, a.k.a. a 30 euro taxi ride home from the pub if you decide to go home after the buses stop running at 11 p.m. At least the taxi was cheaper than the extra 100 euros we would have paid for a decent location.
2. It’s worth it. Expensive plane tickets and hostels (or inconvenient if you’re cheap like me) are nothing compared to the experience. End of story. Actually, this is the part where I tell you mine.
We woke ourselves up early on Saturday praying to good old St. Paddy that the weather would be nicer than the freezing rain we braved wandering the city on Friday night. It was barely better, but it could have been hailing, and we wouldn’t have noticed among the festivities.
We started the day watching the parade on O’Connell St. The best way I could describe it is whimsical. There was some sort of theme, but it was nearly impossible to discern from the spectacles that rolled past us one after another. There were of course traditional marching bands and city organizations, but in between, there was a Chinese dragon, a giant rhinoceros sitting in a wheel chair and a woman with a blue face and one antler preaching into a microphone about the importance of dreaming. The whole thing was perfectly bizarre and put me right back into that dreamlike frame of mind in which I had intended to enjoy my year in Europe.
The perfect Guinness pint, at the Guinness Storehouse 360 Bar
In fact, the rest of the day fit so perfectly to my fantasy of a perfect Irish experience, I couldn’t have planned it myself (to be fair, I don’t usually plan these things, I just kind of buy a plane ticket, book a hostel and hope for the best). We spent most of the day in a pub (in the Temple Bar area, which I highly recommend unless you suffer from claustrophobia), sipping pints of Guinness, watching rugby and making friends, Irish and international.
Though it may be a reason most of us try to plan our routes to class avoiding Telegraph, one of the best things about Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day was the hordes of tourists. It was just a one-of-a-kind experience to be surrounded by thousands of strangers from all over the world, all together to celebrate the same thing. And in spite of the influx of obnoxious drunk tourists, the well-earned Irish reputation for friendliness and hospitality lived up to expectations.
I’ll be back to see Ireland next month, to experience it with slightly less tourists, maybe a bit less Guinness (actually, a month closer to returning to reality, there will probably be more Guiness), and a bit less insanity, but all I have to say for St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin is: thank you, Paddy!
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