March 17th – St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Paddy's Day! Paddy's day here isn't that huge for people who are actually Irish, and they tend to avoid the massive crowds downtown. Surprisingly, we did not do the very touristy thing of going to the parade downtown. Instead we visited Croke Park, the stadium in Dublin where Gaelic sport matches are held.

If you haven't heard of Gaelic Football or Hurling, I strongly encourage you to look them up on YouTube! These two Irish sports are like combinations of multiple sports, and they're both contact, so they are very intense to watch. Croke Park is the third largest stadium in Europe, and we got to see both a Hurling and a Gaelic Football match. So it was still a pretty eventful St. Patrick's Day.

Later that night, we got to catch up with Ainsley, my teammate and the goalie of the field hockey team - Swat Reunion! She's studying in Scotland and was visiting Ireland with her sister.