How The Irish Celebrate

One of our mornings opened up to an unbelievable fog. 

The Derry Peace bridge looked like a magic wand letting off a shining orb.

Peacefulness and purple flowers in the neighborhood.

On St. Patty's day, we went to the parade. This seemed to be the big event of the day, along with the market with a ton of booths selling fair food and various sundry Irish items. Obviously, there was a lot geared towards tourists, because tourist season begins NOW in Ireland. :)

The old codger you see in the photo above began to talk to us after we'd been standing for awhile waiting for the parade to begin. Obviously a fixture in the community, he kept greeting people as they passed and kept jokingly offering me as a date to various people he knew. I felt a little awkward, but it was a funny situation.

Another delightful codger waiting with his granddaughter for the parade to begin. Does it sound funny to say that I enjoyed watching the people more than the parade itself?

Waiting and waiting. Splashes of green everywhere.

A small child farther down from this boy started gnawing on the bars. Poor little guy must have missed lunch.

This child looked like a Hobbit.

A leprechaun! His stilts let him jump up and down quite high. He was a little freaky and came over to offer me a kiss, but I ignored him. 

Steam-punk! Regina, this is for you. It actually played music, if you'll believe that.

Unfortunately, there was no candy thrown at this parade. The only two requirements were 1) be part of a group or organization and 2) wear the strangest costume you can put together. 

Bagpipes! First I thought, wait that's Scottish, but the Irish codger said they were authentic.

The parade wasn't very long, but it was quite a bit of fun!

This is later in the market square. Derry is called The Walled City and even has original cannons and the police were manning the cannons. There was a lot of security at this event and I was glad. There were some people intent on partying it up and making trouble and knowing that policemen were about made me feel much safer.

We listened to some excellent Irish music for a bit, but it was cold and ballet flats weren't keeping my feet warm, so we headed back to our hostel.

But before we went in for the night, we went to get candy for our own little celebration. Jak found her new best friend in a gummy snake she named Jeremy McCoy. He's Irish, you see.