Being older I can't say I have actually "celebrated" St. Patrick's Day in quite some time, don't get me wrong I like a green beer just as much as the next person but it just doesn't always work out that I can have one. Now last year we spent St. Patrick's Day in Savannah, Georgia and that is one of the largest celebrations in the States or in the world.. we had a fantastic time. I'm not going to lie though St. Patrick's Day tends to be more about annoying drunk people than enjoying your green beer, at least that's been my experience the last few years!
Tanya mentioned this week that she wanted to go into the city for the St. Patrick's Day parade and I was hesitant. Honestly I am not all about parades, I only really like the marching bands and floats and floats don't seem to be a thing in the States, plus it was suppose to rain. I did some reading and saw that they were expecting about a million people to attend at which point I figured it must be good and decided I would go.
I woke up this morning and it was raining.. total bummer! I was still planning on going but hoping the rain would quit. I left getting ready quite late and ended up rushing to throw on a green shirt and make my hair presentable! Thankfully by the time I headed out the door the rain had stopped! We made it downtown and got a really decent spot to watch the parade (at the beginning of the route) and there we stood!
Again I don't really thing parades are the bees knees but I took some pictures from y'all! The one neat thing about this parade is that people truly came from all over the world for it. Chile, Spain, Canada, Ireland, Japan and so on. Fun fact they don't actually celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, in fact the celebration was invented by American's.. who knew?
Here are some pictures!!
The Police, this was the kind of strange thing about this parade. It was police, marching band, church group, police. Then marching band, group from Ireland, church group, marching band.
Civil war reenactors
This bunch was from Quebec
This picture does it no justice but I would not be shock if there really was a million people out for the parade.
Bad picture but I had to include it on account that these little majorettes were so cute!
More littles!
This group was from Japan!
The parade was over in about an hour and a half I think, it wasn't all that long and honestly I was ready to go because it was quite damp and getting really windy and cold. I was anticipating it being a lot warmer, as the weather channel did say that the rain would end the sun would come out and it would get to 58 degrees.. lies! All lies!! Tanya and I decided to wander around the city and check out a few stores that we don't always get to go into around here. Turns out Joe Fresh was having a huge sale and I got a pair of jeans for $3.88!!! Yes you read that right.. $3.88!!!
As we tried to get back to midtown it was crazy, roads were still blocked off everywhere and cops were directing people which seemed a little nuts. Then there was the ever so lovely drunk people, I kid you not people were literally falling all over the place and there were even people playing Frisbee in the middle of the street, I guess they didn't notice the thousand or more people around them.
In and amongst the chaos I had to stop and take a picture of the Public library, it truly is my favorite place in the entire city!
Now before we could come home we had a mandatory stop.. McDonald's for a Shamrock shake! These things were discontinued in Canada years ago but since living in the States every year I try to have one around this time of year. I don't even want to share with you guys how many calories are in one of the bad boys but I will tell you there are 54 ingredients! That's scary. Having said that it was amazing!
Overall the day was really good, I am glad we headed home when we did because it got sooooo windy and if its windy in the city its 10 times worse in Jersey City.. which is was when we got off the subway!
Jason is really busy at work right now and working long hours so sadly we will not be going out for green beer tonight but that's ok! What are you guys up to for St. Patrick's Day? Do you go out and celebrate or make your own festivities at home?
Whatever you are doing today I hope you have a fantastic day!! I will leave you with some interesting facts about St. Patrick's Day HERE.
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