Everyone’s Irish on March 17th
von Felix
Finally, St. Patrick’s Day! The weather was ideal: warm and sunny – luck of the Irish. To cut a long story short: I was still sick and did not party. Hot milk and honey instead of „the black stuff“. While all my friends went to see the parade on O’Connell Street and partied in Dublin’s pubs, I spent serious money and a big chunk of the day in Tallaght Hospital to see a doctor who could prescribe me some antibiotics. Maybe I should write another entry on my experience with healthcare in Ireland.
Later I went into city centre to meet some friends and drink peppermint tea from a pint glass. Green tea looks better, though. Not quite what I expected of that day. I think I’ll have to come to Dublin next year for Paddy’s Day.
In the evening we got hungry. Fernando, Chris and me left the flat and headed for the Subway in O’Connell Street. In order to avoid the crowd, we went through the narrow dark alleys. We approached the end of one of one and only had a few metres left to go, when there suddenly were lights and a vehicle was coming in our direction. We just wanted to be friendly and stepped aside, pressing ourselves against the wall to let the truck pass.
The passengers must have misinterpreted that: the garda truck came to a stop and within seconds we found ourselves surrounded by about ten gardai. Pretty impressive! They asked us again and again where we were from and what we were doing in that alley – always the same questions. We answered honestly: we’re students from Germany, who just left a party to get some footlong subs. Then they checked our pockets and wanted to see all the hard items we carried with us. After they had convinced themselves that we neither carried guns nor drugs we were let go. Without a single word of excuse. Next time we’ll take the main streets.