Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Hope you were able to enjoy a fun, laid-back St Patrick's Day, Irish-style. This year I avoided the packed pubs filled with green-clad tourists in favor of quieter fun. Over the weekend, this meant looking up guitar tabs for Irish songs for a sing-a-long with Steve. Then today was a fun social day at work between time in the lab, lunch out with friends, meeting with the research engineers, and dinner at a coffee shop with another friend (where I enjoyed a hummus and veggie sandwich – a nod to my favorite selection from the little sandwich shop near the university in Galway where I did a semester in Ireland. Much tastier than corned beef!) So not so much wild drunken partying, just hanging out with people I like - that’s my kind of craic* :)

Of course, I did wear green. And also drank lots and lots of tea. Definitely rivaled the quantities of tea I drank when I lived in Ireland (yes, they drink it by the gallonful, it would seem. Go over to anyone’s house, even after a night out at the pub/nightclubs, and you’d end up with a cup of tea in your hands). But that probably had a lot to do with me still attempting to adjust to daylight savings time, and needing the extra caffeine boost. In any case, it’s been a fun week!

Dingle Peninsula - from a trip in 2007

*craic is the Irish word that translates roughly to “a good time”. As in, “ah sure it was great craic last night!” It’s pronounced “crack” which makes it amusing to Americans.. and thus all the more fun an expression to use :)