Coulda Woulda Shoulda

In honour of St. Patrick's Day, I thought I would walk myself down memory lane from the first time we spent the holiday in Europe.We were living in Leeds and took off for a long weekend, not to Dublin, but to Belfast. We had no idea that the 4 days we spent there would inspire us to want to move there. Regardless of the political and religious undertones of the holiday and the city we spent it in, it became more for us our next beginning. We stayed in a youth hostel right near the city centre area. We even got our own beds: We were taken up the coast by my lovely cousins: Saw beautiful scenery Including the Giant's Causeway Found a cute little pub (that quite quickly became on of our locals after we arrived) Joined the crowds outside city hall And of course, waved an Irish flag And in all of this, somewhere amongst the revelry and finding of old relatives, we decided this would be a great place to continue our adventure abroad. In the years that followed, I s...

I've always enjoyed St. Patrick's Day, a day built around the celebration of everything Irish and much like Canada, a good excuse to have a pint or four. This year was quite tame. Although I went to a party on Saturday, I was driving so I didn't drink. I had an early morning meeting today so there was no way I was going to head out to a pub the night before. I find myself, only now, not only reminicing about St. Paddy's Days of years past but also of Belfast and our time there. One of my favourite memories of getting together with two very dear friends, Belfast A and Belfast G, usually on a spur of the moment, for a drink and a gab session. Garrick Bar in Belfast was the perfect wee spot: (photo courtesy of flickr account ) We would tuck ourselves away into one of these corners and next thing you know, it'd be last call. And then we'd all stumble back to our respective homes, perhaps stopping for some chinese or jacket potatoes along the way. It was great to hav...