Adam Turtle, Freelance Web Design in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Since1986
St Paddy’s Day
- 18th March, 2008
- filed under: San Francisco
- 2 comments
It’s kinda sad that the American’s celebrate an Irish holiday more than the Irish. The biggest celebrations of Saint Patrick’s Day are in Chicago, Boston and New York, and in Chicago they even go to the extent of dying the river green.
San Francisco is no different. On Saturday they had the big St Patrick’s Day celebrations where thousands of ‘Irish’ people lined Market St appropriately attired in green to watch the parade go past.
I think I was one of the few genuine Irish people there that day, but I did feel very proud to be Irish. It’s also a little weird that everyone waves the Tricolour about and no one gets threatened. Much different to home where stupid people seem to get offended by which flag you support. I think that’s one of the main reasons why we don’t celebrate St Patrick’s Day as much at home.
After the parade, there was a huge festival thing at the Civic Center. There was a band playing and stalls set up selling the typical tourist garb, then there was all the beer companies giving out free beer for coming to their stalls. To be honest, it was pretty lame. I stayed about an hour and then left.
On the way home, Johnny Foley’s – the Irish pub close to my home – was flooded with people. There were people spilling out onto the street all drinking their Guinness, just because it’s an Irish bar. The other bar on the other side of the street was nowhere near as crowded.
Yesterday, on the real St Patrick’s Day, I decided it would be nice to get away from the city and do something different. I managed to secure a day off work as it was an Irish holiday, so I took Valerie down to Great America. It’s a theme park located close in Santa Clara, close to San Jose. I went there before and it was awesome, but we went by car and it only took about 40 minutes to get there. This time we didn’t have a car, so we decided on BART which got us close, but we’d have to take a few buses to get there afterwards. In total it took almost 2 hours to get there, and when we got the friggin’ park was closed. I couldn’t believe it. I had checked their website just a few days before and they said they were open for the season on March 16th. I forgot to check the night before, where they said they were only open on weekends. Luckily my tickets are valid for the whole season.
We didn’t waste the day, though. We found a mall called Great Mall nearby and spent a good few hours there. It was huge but we didn’t buy much. There was a Disney outlet store that sells all the crap from Disney stores that didn’t get sold first time around, at discount prices. I got a straw cowboy hat from Pirates of the Caribbean originally priced at $24 for just 99c. Bargain. We got a mini golf set too for some tournaments at home. Had lunch at a Korean fast food place, which was pretty good. I also bought a basketball so I can keep in shape.
On the way home, rather humourously, Valerie was too slow getting off the BART. I got off in Oakland, and she had to get off at Macarthur station and come back. After everything, I got back to San Francisco and had to wait 20 minutes for her getting back.
Last night then I skipped the St Patrick’s Day Festival, because I’d had enough by this stage, and went to play basketball up on Russian Hill. The court is awesome, had great basketball and tennis facilities and has a panoramic view of the entire bay with Alcatraz right in the middle. Brilliant.
I headed down to dublin for St. Patricks this year, it was pretty good banter with alastair and austin
Maybe it is because there is 40million American’s of Irish decent compared to the 7.5m true Paddies who live in Ireland which is why it is such a big thing in America….did you know that 40% of these Irish American’s are actually Ulster Scots also and don’t even know it….