SPD 2008 :)

Nicole, Serena & I (L-R) at the SPD parade!

[most of this is a repeat for Ang. except the story about the train station... sorry AG]

almost...ALMOST... kissed a cute irishman. Actually, not anywhere close. One guy was cute, but he was on his way to work at O'Neill's... and the rest of the guys I saw were not irish. I did, however get hit in the head by a giant inflatable hammer that made a sound like a baby toy when it hit me -- the guy was like, 22 tops, and he pretended like he didn't do it... we were walking into & out of the hotel via revolving doors, so he pulled it off quite nicely... I called out "happy st patrick's day to you, too!" but no kissing. And he was DEFINITELY american.

* * * * * *

Dublin was WONDERFUL! Nicole and I took the 735am train up from Limerick Monday morning and met Serena there (she went to visit a friend on Sunday). Our big adventure was when we learned about the efficiency of the Irish, which was aptly identified as an oxymoron by Nicole, the hard way. Once our train arrived at Heuston station in Dublin, we still had to take the LUAS to Connelly station and then the DART to Pearse station in order to walk the least amount with our luggage. One thing we learned was that it is exactly TWO stops from Connelly to Pearse, but we did not learn that until after we waited at Connelly on platform 5 for 15 mins only to have the Pearse train disappear at the last minute and miraculously reappear on platform 6. We had to walk the equivalent of 2-3blocks, go down a flight of stairs, cross under the tracks, & go back up the stairs -- as we are crossing under the tracks, we can hear the Pearse station train drive away... so we get up the stairs and ask 2 more train employees when the next Pearse train leaves and they say 14 mins. Next train arrives. No one is on it. 14 mins go by. The doors are unlocked, so 7 of us jump on the train and the guy waves the engineer on. The train crawls slowly for about 5 mins... a girl thinks we're going backwards, away from Pearse station. Train stops. Engineer comes out and tells us that we are on a train that is sitting in the trainyard and going nowhere! *sigh* We wait for the green light to return to the station, get off train #1, walk under the tracks (again), arrive at platform 6 to see the same people who were waiting for the train when we left. Another 20 mins go by, get on train #2 like normal people, stand for 4 mins and get off in 2 stops. In the hour that it took to do all that, we could have walked to Pearse station 3 times! haha!

We met Serena & checked our baggage at the hotel and walked to the parade. It was crazy-crowded! 650,000ppl! see here for more about the parade:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0317/breaking14.html?via=me

We kept moving places so see different angles and I have some really fun photos of people climbing trees, lamp posts, phone booths, other people, etc to see the parade... I loved it! It was sooooooooo much fun to be around so many people who were as excited about dressing silly and green :) I also have pics of cute boys and cops... can't help myself...



Then we went to O'Neill's Pub&Carvery (where Angela and I went in October & Jill & I went in January... becoming a regular hang out of mine!) for lunch and it was unbelievably crowded. We ended up sharing a table with strangers and when they left a guy came and sat down beside us all by himself. So when Serena & Nicole went to the bathroom, we chatted for a bit. Turns out he was there by himself because he works there. He's lived in Savannah, GA and NYC, and we talked about how the majority of irish people who actually celebrate SPD are either under the age of 10 or the parents of those under the age of 10... haha!

Then we went to check in at the hotel and just talked/relaxed/enjoyed the room for a few hrs and went back out to the city in the evening for supper. We walked to St Stephen's Green and down Grafton St and around Temple Bar a bit and finally settled on a Tapas Bar called Salamancas. It was really nice! A little on the expensive side, but we cut out a night at the hotel so that we wouldn't feel badly about spending $ on food.

We went back to the hotel and talked more (it's 3 girls, what else would you expect, eh?) and I took a BATH in a BATHTUB!!!!!!! and when I got out, the girls had found an episode of Corner Gas and left it on for me to watch - how cool are they???? They'd never seen/heard of it before, but it played here at midnight, so that is good for me to know! :) I laughed so hard - they did not get most of the jokes. Or at least did not find them as funny as they would have if they'd lived in SK. But they enjoyed making fun of the characters :) It was the episode when the "small town doctor" comes to check out Dog River to see if she should move there and decides Dog River is too big for her... I loved it :)

Bed at 1am, up at 845 to go sit in the jacuzzi for 20 mins while the other two were dressing and then we went to starbucks and mcd's before taking the train back to Limerick... how american did we feel: starbucks and mcd's??? But we so did not care! It was cheap. ish.