Honoring the great Irish saint with Guinness and shamrocks!

St. Patrick's Day is the one dad where we think we get a saint's permission to drink to our hearts content. I was so excited to spend this wonderful Irish holiday in Ireland!! I never really celebrated it at home, except for getting pinched (which we only do in American, the Irish think we are crazy). Asince we got in on the 16th, we hit some tourist shops to crab a few St. Patty's Day accessories and made a pub run was a must (this is sort of mandatory in Dublin). We found a really good pub near the hostel that had live Irish music playing and met some really great people to hangout with a treid out some Irish dancing.
St. Patty's day started out with putting on our awesome temporary tattoos (Irish flag on one cheek and a shamrock on the other) and going to the Parade on O'Connell street. It is the largest non-military parade in the world-and I think the craziest parade in the world, lol. There were some really interesting groups, but we loved it! We waited 2 hours in our spot for the parade to start. We got some good coffee (which I was really missing in Prague) and croissants and muffins. After the parade we napped! A very important part of the day, especially when we were out late the night before and considering it was Patty's day we needed rest. After naps we ventured out to 2 awesome pubs. The first was the Pub at the Arlington Hotel (great bar btw). We listed to some great real Irish music and got to watch river dancing, we also got to have some Guinness. Lindsey and Stephanie had never had it before and by the end of the night they were pros at drinking it and knowing when it was ready to be consumed (there are rules to drinking Guinness). After the Arlington we went back to the pub from the night before, The Celt. The Celt and the Arlington were our favorite pubs. The crowds are great and prices good, plus they were very festive! We had a great time, met some cool Irish people (they are actually difficult to find at some places, lol). We learned a lot about St. Patty's day and just how American we look. First of all: No Green Beer in Ireland (apparently it is a mortal sin to even request one-that is what every Irish guy told us). Secondly-it's ok not to wear green, they don’t care, but they did like that I could drink Guinness and liked it [thank you dad for teaching me the proper way to drink;) ]. Oh, apparently I am very American! Steph (from New York), Linds (Illinois) and I were walking up to the bar and thisguy stopped us, pointed at us individually and said "American (Steph), American (me), Chicago(Linds)"…we were like OMG how did you do that. The Chicago part through us off though, since Lindsey is really only from 3 hours outside of the city. Then when I asked him where he thought I was from he said North Dakota (random state) and he said because he thought I seemed real. When he found out I was from Cali he was like 'What!? No way, you are real, no plastic and your hair isn't platinum" haha, I was just cracking up, but I am glad that I don’t fit the bad stereotypes on SoCal. One guy we met taught us the "Irish Bungee Jump"…… it's just sitting in a chair an tipping it backwards, we were like OMG you are a crazy dude. It was a great night meeting new people and learning all about the real Irish Patty traditions.