St. Paddy's and Pete!

As most of you know Wednesday was St. Paddy's Day.... and well it's nothing short of madness here in Ireland. I went to the parade with friends in the morning, and the parade lasted almost 2 hours. In Ireland, St. Patrick's Day is a national holiday, so all of the kids were out of school. The parade was absolutely packed, and included a bunch of songs and dances by numerous ethnic groups, a few floats, a lot of marching bands, and a few other acts. The city was dressed in green!

Although I didn't get to experience the pubs on St. Patrick's day something better happened! I got a call about 7:30 on Wednesday night from my mom saying that Pete (my brother in law who is the army) would be stopping over in Shannon, Ireland on his way back to Iraq at about 5:00am. He was returning from 2 weeks of R&R. So I was able to get on the last bus out of town at 10:00 PM that night, pulled an all nighter at the airport and was able to see Pete.

But there is more to this story.... Unfortunately on the way to the airport, my wallet was lost, and so I was without identification.... kind of a problem at the airport! Thankfully, I was able to call my parents back in the states and they were able to fax over a copy of my passport to the airport police, and then I got to be escorted by airport police until I met up with Pete. Kind of a crazy day, but definitely worth it! I got to spend about an hour with Pete at the airport before he had to get on his next plane. I got home about 10:30am on Thursday, napped for a few hours and then was off to class. I slept like a baby last night :)

One week left of classes..... this trip is going so ridiculously fast!