St. Patrick's Day

Since we're between two major trips abroad where we're in charge of the health and happiness of groups of young people, and also happen to be moving to a new school building this week, we nearly missed St. Patrick's Day.

We did miss the major festivities- parades, parties, green beer- but had some fun celebrating at home anyway. Click HERE to check out that story and see some photos.

Last but not least, a funny memory just popped into my head...and therefore onto this blog page. The last time I was abroad for St. Patty's, I was in Buenos Aires with a fantastic group of new Latino friends (Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, etc.). We were in the main center of the city, along with thousands of other revelers. Soon after we arrived, many in the group grabbed 1-liter drinks and fully enjoyed drinking in public (lawful and hunkydory in Argentina).

All of a sudden, the mood of the streets shifted. A few of those large bottles began flying through the air, and as several were smashing against a wall maybe 30 feet from us we realized that those thousands of happy Irish-for-a-day Argentines were starting a small (celebratory?) riot. As we very quickly left the area in a taxi, we could see hoards of police approaching from several directions in cars and on horseback. Too close for my comfort.

Later that night, I watched the ensuing riot on TV. People went nuts. Back in those days, I didn't have much in the way of common sense. As a teenager, I always told my buddies, "Once in my life I'd like to experience being in a riot." I'm definitely glad I didn't stick around for that one.

And on that note, good night and Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Cahill-Whites (both Irish names, by the way).

Some interesting links from Google:
1.) A random LINK about one guy's experience in BsAs that day (he must have missed the riot...)
2.) Some fanatic's website about riots or war protests. Scroll down a little bit and you'll see that they had an Anti-Iraq War protest that day as it was the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Maybe that's what this was all about in the first place.