Best St. Patty’s day ever

Alright, here’s the story. Maybe some of you all think that St. Patrick’s Day takes place on March 17. And maybe it does, I wouldn’t really know. Here’s a quote from the Wikipedia article, which indicates that it sometimes falls on different dates:

The date of the feast is occasionally moved by church authorities when March 17 falls during Holy Week; this happened in 1940 when Saint Patrick’s Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and is happening again in 2008, being observed on 15 March. March 17 will not fall during Holy Week again until 2160.

What the hell do I know? Munich is a weird place, and apparently the German-Irish here don’t give much of a damn about Palm Sunday, because St. Patty’s Day here happened on Sunday, March 16. So it goes.

I myself was working most of the evening, and didn’t end up getting home till around 11:30pm. I checked my phone and had some missed calls from friends out drinking, but since I’m a little strapped for cash at the moment, I figured screw it. But then I read a text from a Scotsman I’d met on Saturday, and borrow a friend’s phone to call him and check up on him.

I learn that Monk, as his friends call him, is of course completely wasted and got separated from all his bros at the Hofbräuhaus. He didn’t know where anyone was, but had made it back to his hostel, which has a bar on the ground floor. He was, in typical Celtic fashion, drowning his sorrow with strong beer. Seeing as this was his last night in Munich, I couldn’t leave him hanging like that. Cue Team America.

I rally Jesse and Alex to come out with me for just a single beer, just to bid farewell to Monk. I really hit it off with Monk on Saturday, when I met him while I was working, and I know figured he’d really get a kick out of our coming out to treat him to a round.

Things did not go as planned, however. It turns out Monk was so grateful that we came, he bought us all a round. And then another. All the way to five. Apparently the pound sterling is doing damn fine against the already rather spunky euro, and to Monk it was like buying candy—in more ways than one, I suppose. By about the fourth round or so, a few of his band of Scots come stumbling back to the hostel, and drinks are once again liberally distributed.

So Jesse, Alex, and I ended up limping back through the doorway to our own place at 6am. I had to be up at 9am to head to work today. To Scots!

For the record, that’s Jesse on the left.

Now, that’s all well and good, but the thing that really amazed me about this St. Patty’s Day was the augur I saw in the sky, after hearing that I had off work due to heavy rainfall. Behold.

Is that not the most gorgeous freaking rainbow you’ve ever seen? That sucker appeared and remained vibrant for about 20 minutes, I’m sure long enough for someone to snag the pot of gold or keg or Guinness or whatever the hell lives at the end of a rainbow.

I’ll be completely honest and say that I spent the rest of the day in a state of extreme anxiety, half-expecting to hear the Gjallerhorn ring out across Munich. I didn’t hear it, though.