St Paddy's Day

So our last day in London we decided to not plan anything big. We had to catch an 11 o'clock train back to the airport so that didn't leave us with much time anyway. The first day we had arrived, we stumbled across a half open-aired market. It was in this big area that had a connecting roof between a bunch of stores and restaurants but wasn't actually a building:

It kinda looked like the Costo of flee markets. The first time we had stopped by there were stalls open, but not very many. I had seen a sign in our hostel that had info on a bunch of different markets and as I was looking at it I thought "huh this one looks familiar". Surprise surprise, it was the same one and it's actually call the Old Spitalfields Market. The info thing also said it was busiest on Sundays so we decided that since it was right near the train station, we'd get there early to have a walk around. It was a good thing that it was the end of the trip and I had very little cash left on me because there were some cool things here that I would've bought. For an American equivalent, it reminded me most strongly of an indoor version of Eastern Market in DC for those that have been.

There also was this hilarious statue nearby:

Kate we found you again!

This was so funny to us because our apartment (mostly Kate and I) has become OBSESSED with goats and making random goat noises since this video:

and this one:

I personally think this is an improvement upon the original song, but that's just me. oh and this one:

Okay, okay I'll stop with the goat videos (don't deny you didn't laugh though). We quickly found our time at the market running out and so we finally left the beloved city of London. I have to admit, London took me kind of by surprise. I don't really know what I was expecting in the first place if anything really, but it quickly found it's way near the top of my favorite cities list amidst Pittsburgh and NYC. I think it's because I have such a bad case of traveller's ADD in that I need to be doing lots of different and new things all the time when travelling and London is so huge that it never runs out of things to do that are new. Even after spending three and a half days there we didn't get to do nearly everything there is to do. Well lucky me I'll get to do all the other stuff I wanted to when I revisit this summer with da schwester!

We arrived back in Cork at around 2 or 3 and had the unfortunate task of getting home...on St. Paddy's Day...after the parade...when no busses were running...with all our stuff. Granted it was a fun walk because lots of drunk people were still wandering around the closed off streets and everything was either green or orange.

If anyone tries to tell you that "Oh St Paddy's Day isn't that big a deal in Ireland" please tell them they are misinformed. At least when it comes to city celebrations. Cork literally went wild that day, and even though I was only there for half of it (the important half), it was a blast. As I said, Cork did have a parade and even though we missed it, we could still see that a lot of streets were closed and float things or carnival games were set up. It was also weirder to see someone not dressed in green or orange or white than someone who was. We actually ran into some friends who were walking back as well and they of course were decked out, fake tattoos and flags and all:

 It also was  GORGEOUS day, and the first real warm day Cork had had. Warm, of course, is a relative term here meaning 47 degrees...which is warm enough for t-shirts for those that had the extra insulation of alcohol.

It seemed as though this was the typical schedule for people across the city that day:
wake-up: drink
get ready for parade: drink
go to parade: drink
walk home from parade: drink
nap time!
wake-up from nap: drink
eat something: drink
get ready to go out for the night: drink drink drink
go out for the night: drinkdrinkdrinkdirnkdirnkdrinkdrinkdrinkdrinkdrinkdrinkdrink

My liver thanked me for not being here for the full schedule and not actually following the schedule. It was an awesome time and I won't lie and say I didn't drink anything, but I definitely wasn't trying to pace with the Irish. I don't know if people actually celebrate St. Paddy's Day for the real reason, some people probably do somewhere, or if the Irish just use it as an excuse to drink. Which they do love to do. I even got into the spirit and turned my Irish flag that I had bought a while ago into a cape. We probably had just as much fun getting ready for the celebration as we did the celebration itself.

Cape and ridiculous hat?

 check.

fake tattoos?

 check.

photo booth effects?

 check.

dance party?

check.

face faaaar to close to the screen?

check.

Another indication that it's not a forgotten holiday over here is the fact that the day after St. Paddy's Day is a bank holiday. Meaning we didn't have class. It was truthfully the only day we've gotten off of class the entire semester so it must have more importance than just being a recovery day.

There's another item checked off the bucket list: St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.