St. Patrick's Day

It's really not a thing here. I mean, it is if you're Catholic, maybe. Just like the 12th of July is a thing if you're Protestant. (Look that one up, if you haven't already.) I didn't wear any green today. No upsetting the bounds here for me. (I won't be wearing orange on the Twelfth either, by the way.) After finding a ride into town via a man who lives out by us who is on the board for the YFC Centre (which involved being scammed into cleaning a flat that he owns in town that he's redoing to rent it out to another tenet, slave labor), we made it in for the parade! It was the first one that Dungannon has ever had, and it was mostly little kids. Low scale. But still, I enjoyed it. They don't throw candy at their parades here, though--it would be both unsafe and unsanitary in their opinion. Don't come to our parades then, because candy is the point of it all...

And then this evening, the Americans were invited to an Irish meal at the Vineyard church in town. We ate Irish stew (which didn't seem a whole lot different than stew I've had back home--maybe Minnesota is secretly Irish, or we've gained their love for potatoes) as well as soda bread, which is a sort of doughy, dense bread that is quite good. Goal: make soda bread before leaving this country. Possible? Yes.

All in all, a grand St. Patrick's Day. It will likely be my best ever, unless I move to Northern Ireland one day and do it each year. Oh, that would be lovely.