The Real St Patrick's Day

I had to celebrate the real St Patrick's Day because I celebrated the Hoboken parade. My brother-in-law, niece and nephew came in the night before and stayed at Hotel 91. They had a one night stay and newest guests, Feras and his brother Brent arrived in the morning via Detroit.

It started early, with Feras and Brent arriving at 8:30 am. The kids donned their St Pat's symbols on their face and we headed to Stargate for a hearty breakfast. After breakfast we returned and went down to Grand Central to enjoy the St Patrick's Day Parade. It's amazing how many police/firepeople were down there. I am assuming that they were off duty (probably still getting paid for it though), but Feras made the comment if anybody was policing the rest of the city (good question!).

It was a brisk day and we started the parade watching in the shade. It was a bit to nippy to remain in there. We headed across the street to the sun and it was tolerable. You had an array of police forces, whether they were in their dress blues or in traditional Irish garb, schools and their marching bands, American Legion groups, etc. It was packed full on families, drunk young adults, and senior citizens. It was a good time. We lost my brother-in-law and the kids. They ended up going up to the end of the parade (around 86th street).

After the parade, we headed down to the NYU area to meet up with Roy's buddies. We started at Off the Wagon. It was only noon, so we paced ourselves, watched the tournament, had a few sliders, and chatted it up. The only major upset in the beginning was Northwestern St beating Iowa. It sort of messed up my brackets, but not a major blow.

After Off The Wagon we went to Down the Hatch and met up with Roy's buddies. Mike, who I met when he came and visited Roy in Australia, was there with his physical therapy crew celebrating the end of the mid-terms was there. This is where we met him up last year. This place was packed, and it was probably around 3. Throughout the time people joined us and left us. Paul joined us after work.

I was feeling pretty good. Everybody was starting to wind down. Feras and Brent went to Mammoun's for a falafel and even though they had been up since 4 am, were still gearing to go. Feras, Paul, Brent, and I decided to head to Paul's local bar, Mooney's in Park Slope. I hadn't eaten that much before that, so when I heard there was going to be free corned beef sandwiches, I was excited to get there, considering it was about a 20 minute Subway ride and we stopped at another bar before that. I ended up having three of them!

The only other interesting thing that happened there was that I decided to start talking to a girl. It was justified because she was looking at me (at least that was my perception). I missed the fact that they were with a bunch of guys, but I would kick myself if I didn't talk to her. It went well I got her number!

Feras and Brent were definitely looking tired, so we headed back to Manhattan. They passed out and I watched my bracket take a major blow by Kansas getting upset!