I've been throwing St. Patrick's Day parties and kegs 'n eggs since before most of you were born (probably not true if you are old enough to navigate to this page and actually read this, but I've always wanted to say something like that), so I know the ins and outs of making a St. Pat's party memorable. Like a thoughtful researcher (adjusts glasses accordingly), I always make sure to reflect, modify and further kick-ass in my next shamrockian endeavor. Behold the evolution of my St. Pat's parties:
Age 20: First attempt at party gets busted by cops....twice Total score: -2 points
Age 21: Over 100 people crammed into tiny college apartment. Green vomit in hallway (not mine). No cops! Total score: +2 point (points deducted for vomit)
Age 22: Kegs 'n Eggs breakfast starting at 10am. Brecka and I are the last ones standing at 3am. Total score: +5 points
Age 23: Kegs 'n Eggs breakfast before Shamrockfest. The introduction of Brecka's hashbrown and Chelsea cooking. First one with Elliot. Total score: +5 points
Age 24: Kegs 'n Eggs breakfast before Shamrockfest. Great food, crappy weather. No drama, just cold. The return of Brecka! Chelsea continues her cooking legacy. Total score: +4 points (points deducted for weather)
Age 25: Kegs 'n Eggs breakfast before Shamrockfest. Crappy weather continues. Introdcution of Julia and the bagged omelet! 3 days later, Courtney gets awful stomach bug; bug attributed to playing flip-cup in an area surrounded by porta-potties. Total score: +3 points (points deducted for the runs)
Age 26: Hiatus on account of not having our household goods yet. TMO furniture party!!!
With 2012 being a leap year, it put St. Patrick's Day back where it belongs: on a Saturday. Upon realizing that spectacular fact, my eyes got as big as pints of Guinness and I went into planning mode. After putting out the call to friends around base, El and I rolled up our sleeves and started the prep work. My saintly mother has been sending me (and my roommates) care packages for holidays since I left for college. Ask anyone I've lived with since the age of 18, and they can attest to the variety of Halloween, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day socks they now own. Thanks to her, El and I have a plethora of St. Patty's day decorations, accoutremont and dishware (including his and hers pub glasses). The fabulous Autumn Lombardi also provided leprechaun windsocks, lights, cardboard shamrocks and other decos to the good of the cause.
We organized the house into two party locations, the dining room and the basement. We designated the basement the "Kid Zone" and had movies playing and lots of coloring pages available. I thought ahead to cover the two coffee tables to avoid unintentional streaking (tee-hee), but we didn't have any white copy paper. Our coffee tables ended up covered in manilla folders. Five points for creativity! Our dining room was decorated with lots of green (naturally) and snacks to accompany the breakfast:
A few years ago, my mom had told me about making omelets in a plastic bag. Basically, you mush up two eggs in a quart sized freezer bag, then add about a tablespoon of whatever ingredients you'd like. You seal up the bag so there is no air available, and then you boil it for 13 minutes. When you open the bag, voila, you have a perfectly made omelet! I learned that it's how the Boy Scouts make their eggs in a pinch. Who knew??? Here's a link to the recipe, if you're interested in making your own. I thought ahead to get people's orders in advance, so on Friday night I prepped and labeled 42 ziploc omelets. I went through 84 eggs (not counting the 4 I used for testers), two packages of bacon bits, two bell peppers, half a bag of fresh spinach, 1.5 packages of ham and a full bag of shredded cheese. Elliot, the prodigy that he is, suggested putting all the eggs in a big bowl, beating them and THEN pouring into the bags. It worked, but it was pretty gross to see a giant bowl of egg yolks floating around. Every time I thought I had gotten them all, I'd see one floating around and then disappear under the beaten yolks. It was like the souls in the River Styx in Clash of the Titans, and I felt like Charon. Just call me the egg hunter. I have to hand it to him though; it did end up saving me a lot of time.
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| Bag swagger |
We had a GREAT turn-out, and everyone had a lot of fun. Since I listen to Irish rock on a normal basis, I already had a playlist of jig-worthy tunes to blast. The guys hung out on the porch and played beer-pong while the kids ran around, colored and watched movies. While I was cooking the hash browns and boiling the omelets, the gals kept me company. It took about an hour and a half before the last omelet was finished, but I think I spent almost the whole time laughing with people. Time flies when you're having fun, even while boiling plastic bags (Oh HELLO, Carcinogens!)
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| The Kitchen Crew (minus a few other ladies) |
The vast majority of folks had bought tickets for the Sevilla-Barcelona game that night, and there were only two trains that got into Sevilla before the game, one that left at 4:05 and one at 5:35. Knowing how hard it is to get a large group of people from one place to ANYWHERE, Elliot started the "time til' departure" countdown about 2:30. We figured it would take about an hour to get us from our house to the train station (normally a 20-25 minute walk), and we didn't want to have anyone claim that they didn't know it was time to vamonos. I've gotta hand it to him, even though at the time he sounded like a pushy *male appendage*, everyone had finished their drinks, gone to the bathroom, composed a symphony and were ready to go by 3:00.
The walk to the train station, while like herding a group of drunken cats, ended up being more entertaining than anticipated. Not only did Elliot run ahead to a bar en route and order plates of Legendario shots (making friends with the bartender and some Spanish dudes in the process) for everyone, but Adam and Jeff jumped on the sides of Timmeo's car and hitched a ride to the train station. I'm surprised Adam didn't get knocked off, considering how narrow the streets are here. While possible broken noses aren't any fun, it WOULD have been amusing to see that happen....
Even though Spain is still an uber religious country where Catholic feast days double as national holidays, Saint feast days don't pack the same punch; St. Patrick's Day being no exception. They also certainly don't celebrate it with lots of green and booze. Walking through the streets all decked out in green, all the Spanish thought that we were fans of Real Betis, Sevilla's OTHER futbol team. The rivalry between Sevilla FC and Real Betis goes back to the Spanish Civil War, and time has not healed all wounds. Bring up one team's name to an opposing fan, and you're likely to encounter a pure visceral reaction. These fans HATE each other. It's a rivalry built on past transgressions and politics, kind of like this rivalry. A guy at the bar en route to the train station was getting visibly agitated at all the green he was seeing and started going off on a tangent to his Spanish amigos (not knowing that we had Spanish speakers in the group). We weren't going to let a few dirty looks and P.O.'ed pendejos ruin our day.
By the grace of Dios, we made it to the train station in time for the 4:05 ride into Sevilla. There were a whole bunch of abuelitas on the train that I really felt sorry for, since our group was like one giant stereotype of loud ass Americans. Elliot started a sing-along to In the Jungle (for which he got one nasty look from me) and started doing one-armed pull-ups in the aisle (why? still not sure). The L.O.T.D (Lord of the Dance) wasn't the only American causing a ruckus. Alcohol tends to increase the decibels in a room at least 10-fold.
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| What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man |
We went next to this restaurant called Tips (or Teeps, as I'm assuming it's pronounced in Spanish) and just ordered a table full of appetizers. There was this nacho dip that was just delicious, and some of the best croquettas I've had in Spain. The waiter was just the worst, but the rest of the food was decent, so I'd label it a success. One of our fellow passengers had a wee bit too much earlier (wasn't me), so it made for a bit of creativity and coaxing to start walking to Nervion Plaza (a shopping mall right next to the stadium) to get some shopping done.
We had JUST made it to Nervion when somebody in our group said, "Isn't that Elliot?" The game had already started 30 minutes earlier, so imagine my surprise when I saw a familiar face and swagger grumpily walking alongside the stadium. It turns out that Carmen and JJ had gotten pick-pocketed, and their tickets were now gone-zo. Emily gave JJ her ticket to the game, so at least one of them was able to go, but still a bummer that the pick-pocketing happened in the first place. Folks were calling Elliot up, and he thought that they had never gotten their tickets in the first place. Well, being the omnipotent wizard of fun that he fancies himself, Elliot wanted to make sure that everyone was having a blast and all their ducks were in a row. He left the stadium to check on the situation, and was denied re-entry when he tried to get back in. Even after he explained the situation and showed them his ticket, they STILL refused to let him back into the game. So for trying to help out, he got to see 5 minutes of a game he paid 100 euros to watch. Can't blame him for being upset, and I felt really bad b/c he had been looking forward to this game. He learned the hard way never to leave the Sevilla FC stadium....
Until the game ended, the sequence of events basically went as follows:
People going to the bathroom --> meet at food court --> stopping at a food place --> people going to the bathroom --> waiting for people at bathroom --> trying to track down people who had gone to the bathroom --> panicking over not finding said bathroom people --> giving up for the time being and going into a few stores --> Adam buys a leather coat --> people from bathroom call and say they're at a bar --> people go outside and call bathroom people --> Where's Adam? -->bathroom people don't answer phones --> rinse, repeat
We met up with the folks from the game (who naturally had a great time), and sloooowly made our way back to O'Neill's. The bathroom folks were finally located as well, so small victory there! O'Neill's was definitely more packed, and we somehow got everyone there in one piece. The Guinness, Jameson and laughs were once again flowing, and folks even made new friends (Disney on Ice was in town, and 'Barbie' was there). We made it home around 2:30 with a smile on our face and a crazy-eyed Chin in the car.
Total Score: +10 points
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