It’s always a nice day on St. Patrick’s Day!

…Okay, so this post is a LITTLE delayed. I blame it on the gorgeous weather we’ve been having and my desire to spend every warm minute that I am not working, sitting outside on our balcony or on a patio eating lunch. But it could not last forever and 2 weeks later, the rain has come, forcing me to spend my afternoon inside.

But back to St. Patrick’s Day. What is it about St. Patrick’s Day that brings the hot air into what has otherwise been a cold week? Seriously, the past 4 years have been strangely warm and I have the statistics to prove it. According to the National Climate Data and Information Archive, the following temperatures have been noted for March 17 in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario:
2011: 12.8°C
2010:16.3°C
2009:14.7°C

On March 14, just 3 days earlier, the following temperatures have been noted:
2011: 2.2°C
2010: 4.1°C
2009: 7.5°C 

Nürnberg, Germany followed the same pattern in 2012. According to The Weather Channel, it was 7°C on March 14 and jumped up to 20°C on March 17.

Mother Nature must really dig the tradition of drinking green beer, celebrating the life of St. Patrick and really want us all to be outside, having a grand time while we do it! Well Mother Nature, I applaud your efforts and have been soaking up the sun every year.

In 2011, I was fortunate to have the day off, the whole month actually as I was unemployed at the time. I spent the week in Waterloo visiting my boyfriend and friends and spent St. Patrick’s Day at the Bomber with a true Irish girl. We even caught the end of some Irish dancing and got our picture taken with a leprechaun! It was the best St. Patrick’s Day I have ever had.

Irish Dancers at Bomber

Myself, the "Leprechaun", and my very own native Irish friend, Julie with her flag

I was looking forward to something exciting again this year. It was a Saturday so Matt and I both had the day off, we had warm weather, and we wore green shirts. We had everything we needed to have an excellent day. It was however, a bit of a disappointment. We sat outside on a patio for dinner which was a little premature because as soon as the sun went down, so did the heat. Fortunately, many of the restaurants in Nürnberg that offer outdoor seating also offer fleece blankets to wrap around your shoulders! The dinner was still enjoyable. Afterwards we made our way to O’Sheas’s Irish pub (one of the few Irish bars in Nürnberg). We got in, we found a spot to stand, and we each ordered a pint of Kilkenny. We were ready for the live band to start! By the time the band had started, O’Shea’s had become quite crowded. Too crowded. There was no one monitoring the number of people who came in or out, but mostly in; our standing room became invaded and we were constantly bumped by backpacks and Guinness hats; and at one point, there was a lady who expected to get back to her crew at the bar, forcing people to cram into what little space was left and Matt literally hugging the brick pillar in the middle of the room in order to create more space, where there wasn’t any. I was I had a picture of it but there was no place to set my beer or room to stand at an appropriate angle. By the time we finished our beer, there was no way to get another unless you were sitting directly at the bar or were the 6”5 guy beside us leaning OVER the people at the bar. We decided to leave and pick up some Guinness on the way home and listen to our own Celtic music. Unfortunately, the gas station was out of Guinness so we had to settle for shots of the Jameson Whiskey I had brought back from Ireland. It did however, do the trick. 

Lessons Learned: The German’s don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, so if you’re in Nürnberg and looking to find one of the few Irish bars that does celebrate this holiday, you should probably arrive early enough in the day to get a table, or else risk the chance that past 8pm, you will have someone pushed up against all of your sides. 

A week later, when the weather was still nice, Matt and I returned to O’Shea’s for lunch out on the patio and had the Guinness we should have had on March 17. 

Delicious Guinness