St Patrick’s Day
You might assume that St. Patrick’s Day would not be as big a deal in Canada that it is back at home but you would be wrong, so very, very wrong. St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated to an insane extent across North America in a way that puts the UK to shame. Many of the baseball and hockey teams where green jerseys in celebration of the day, many cities dye there rivers and canals green while other paint all the buildings on the parade rout instead, people are known to have dinner parties containing only green food and drink and of course like in the UK finding a good bar and drinking green Guinness for most of the day.
Celebrations were of course extended this year because the Pope moved St. Patrick’s Day from the 17th to the 15th in observation of Easter Holly week. Of course for all those who are not Christian this effectively created two St. Patrick’s Days or even better one three day long party.
I celebrated the occasion in Montreal with Canada’s oldest St. Patrick’s Day parade that started in 1824 with my one of my flatmates. People showed up in their thousands and braved the cold and snowy weather to watch the parade pass through down the main-streets of the city. There was an entertaining mix of acts in the parade from marching and pipe bands, to roller-skaters and cheerleaders to firemen and many famous people who I didn’t recognise but was told that they were very important anyway. There were floats celebrating the cities many Irish dance and music societies as well as it many Irish pubs. Local radio and televisions stations also put in an appearance with floats blaring music across the city and handing out green flags, beads and hats to everyone as they passed. The parade was lead by a ten foot tall moving statue of the pope dressed in green holding a shamrock and ended with the Montreal American Football team waving from the open top of a double-decker bus.
After the parade was over we found a somewhere to eat warm food and warms drinks to thaw out after our extended period flag waving on the street. We found a little café that served Poutine and other fries of every variety imaginable. After filling our stomachs and thawing our fingers we headed back out onto the streets to work our way through all the little boutiques that are scattered along St Catherine Street and sell beautiful jewellery and clothes that I wish I could afford. St Catherine Street eventually fades into more affordable and mainstream shops and malls and we whiled away the rest of the afternoon trying to no buy everything we saw in the labyrinth of malls and underground tunnels. Not bad for a daytrip.
The rest of the week was uneventful except for tonight when I am heading out to see the Foofighters in two hours so I will leave to get myself ready for the party!
