Luck of the Irish

Spending St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland is an activity I get to now proudly check off my bucket list. Although it was an early and very long day, I am so happy we made the trek down to Dublin for one of the world’s most famous holidays.

Natalya and I debated if we should make the trip to Dublin for the day. I had a friend from Siena visiting me and I felt bad asking her to haul on three buses over 36 hours and we thought that spending the day up in Northern Ireland would be the same amount of fun that Dublin would be. Oh boy were we off with that speculation. Nearly everyone we talked to said that the festivities and the parade are good up North, but since we would only be here for just one St. Paddy’s Day, we had to make the trip to Dublin. Thank you to everyone who suggested we go, it was so worth it!

When I arrived in August and met all the Scholars, everyone was so personable and easy to talk to that I had a feeling we were all going to be a close group. Seeing almost all 24 of us in the same city to celebrate a huge holiday together was an amazing experience. It was so nice to catch up and to enjoy the Irish culture altogether again. It’s kind of nostalgic to think that just 7 months ago we were strangers meeting for the first time and now we are all close friends who meet up as much as possible. My suggestion to future Scholars would be to take advantage of the opportunities to meet up with other Scholars, see as much of Ireland as possible and embrace every part of the journey. I feel lucky that I’ve grown so close to an amazing group of people and I’m thrilled I got to have a bit of craic in the nation’s capital this past weekend!

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