Sláinte Mhaith!

Today was St. Patrick's Day, a good day to wear green, drink Guinness, and pretend to be Irish.  Silly as this sounds, it was a good excuse for me to get nostalgic and think back on Marianne and I's trip to Ireland last July.  It truly was an awesome trip.  Marianne sent me a bunch of her photos from the trip and I had fun looking through them.  Oh, the memories...



There was the time when I felt a weird cumpulsion to hide behind this post in Cork.  I am also amused that there's a sign on the post for an Easter Rebellion commemoration.


And then there was the time I partied with these statues at our hostel in Dublin.



And then there was the time I crossed that trecherous rope bridge in Carrick-a-rede.



And of course, at every bar we went to, Marianne and I declared it METAL.


At our hostel in Belfast with Kelly from Canada and Jean-Marc from Miami, who I liked because he loved Anthony Bourdain even more than I did.  He's a chef  and when I brought up Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, he exclaimed, "Oh my God, I read that book and thought, 'Holy shit, this is my life!'"  He also told me the night before that I was an "awesome girl" because I was the only one "not giving him shit".  The night before was pretty memorable, even though all that happened was a bunch of us hostel people hanging out in the back drinking vodka and beer.  I think a game of Kings was played.  Someone else got out a guitar and someone else played rap music and a bunch of people were talking and kicking a soccer ball around.  Oh, Paddy's, you were a weird and magical place.  I was possibly the only one not hungover in this photo, though I suppose it's hard to tell based on my facial expression.



And of course, what blog post about Ireland would be complete without the obligatory photo of a pint of Guinness?

At the end of each day, I took my Flip camera and recorded Marianne's final thoughts of the day, which we called our "Anthony Bourdain moment".  Here's my favorite one, at some fish and chips place in Dublin, the night before I was to fly home.