With all of those wonderful memories in mind, the most
important Paddy’s Day, to me, was the one spent in Dublin, two years ago. I
remember the anticipation during the early morning bus ride, the excitement on
the streets, and all of the craic the day would bring. After that, Paddy’s
became a celebration of the time I spent in Ireland: music, dance, friends and
beauty of the country.
This year, one of my friends invited me to go on a pub
crawl. She is from Cork, and had a group of friends visiting from Ireland, to
celebrate the weekend. I was so excited to go with them and spend the day
surrounded, once again, by the Irish. Instead, I spent the day surrounded by
tea mugs, soup bowls, anesthetic throat spray, hot packs, cough drops,
antibiotics and extra blankets. I came down with Strep throat just a few days
before, and despite my best efforts, was unable to become well enough to
celebrate.
I was extremely disappointed. However, I was able to
reconnect with Ireland, on a different level, the prior weekend, when two of my
friends from Dance UL, the intervarsity dance team I was on at University of
Limerick, came to visit me. The first night, they came to New Cross, and we
caught up over dinner and drinks in my favorite local pubs. The next day, we
walked around Oxford Circus, Hyde Park and Piccadilly Circus. A theme/inside
joke that came out of one of the dances we competed at intervarsities, to Bloc Party’s “Hunting for Witches”, was to do “The Creep”, which is a Lonely
Island/Saturday Night Live reference. I say this only as a disclaimer to
prepare you for the photos below.
That afternoon, we saw A Chorus Line. The cheap seats ended
up being in the second row, which would have been terrible for almost any other
show, but ended up being perfect for this one. I’ve seen the movie and performed
the audition piece, with the Dance Ensemble of Michigan (DEMI), but I’ve never
seen it live. It left me in tears.
Afterward, we picked up some pink champagne, to celebrate Rebecca’s
birthday, while they got ready in the hotel, to go out for her birthday dinner and
drinks. I got to play DJ, as I was not joining them for the big night out.
The next morning, we got off to a late start, meeting for
brunch around London Bridge. The weather was horrid, but we made our way to the
Covent Garden Market, before calling it a day and going to dinner early. We
went to the Sushi Samba. I’ve been to the one in New York City, and let me tell
you, this one makes it look like a T.G.I. Friday’s.
As if the glass elevator ride up wasn’t impressive enough,
the view out of the restaurant was amazing, as were our sushi and cocktails.
My INCA SWIZZLE - Tequila and dry chocolate liqueur are churned with freshly
squeezed lemon juice and bitters
Christelle's TONKA BEAN OLD FASHIONED - Plantation Barbados 5 year infused with the powerful spiced
flavour of tonka beans from the kumaru tree in South America. Finished with
star anise and Benedictine (When it was presented to her, the waiter lit the
sugar cane on fire, let it burn for a bit, then flipped it over and
extinguished the burnt end in the drink)
Rebecca's NINA FRESA - Ketel One vodka is shaken with freshly squeezed lime,
grapefruit, rhubarb bitters and guava juice and sweetened with strawberry purée
We sipped our drinks slowly, savoring them and our last hour
together, before they caught the plane home.
To my surprise, I received a text from another Dance UL
friend that weekend, informing me that she would be in London and asking to
meet up for coffee the next day. I spent that Monday in my placement at the
primary school, bouncing my knee, counting down the minutes until I got to go
meet her. We spent just a short time catching up in the Starbucks at Waterloo
Station, where she was to begin her journey back home to Manchester. It was as
if we had not spent a day apart. We giggled, gossiped, joked around, and talked
about future travel plans. I left the station, spirits high, with a green
tinted view of the world.
