Happy St Paddy's Day

It's once again this time of the year when we all start wearing green, watching parades and having (sometimes green) pints of Guinness. Even the local television station reported from the greenest holiday in Denver... the connection they made to how good environmental wise this particular holiday is I really couldn't make myself. Oh well... that's what you call Zeitgeist I guess.

On the other hand we had a fantastic parade downtown Denver. To make it more accessible for everyone (because Paddy's Day is not a national holiday over here) we had the parade already last weekend.

And what a parade that was: 4 hours of marching bands, pipe bands, Irish dancers, horses, lamas, floats and even Denver's mayor which I barely noticed among all other politicians. He also wore a green scarf :o)

But of course it is all about the Irish heritage and I am still amazed about how many Irish dancing schools are in and around Denver.

And about how many Americans which think that wearing a kilt is typical Irish ;-)

But we also had plenty (stereo-)typical American floats like a Native American Pow-Wow, cowboys herding cattle and of course Ronald McDonnald. I still wonder were the King from Burger King was this year ;-)

And like the last three years the Star Wars crowd was there again Which is really funny to see on St. Patrick's Day I think: First you have the marines, the young marines and then a crowd of people dressed in old uniforms (like world war or civil war uniforms) marching... followed by a bunch of Stormtroopers in white :-) I guess in this stage it is now part of the American culture... like the bunch of people dressed up in Stargate (TV series) uniforms who followed ;-)

But all that matters is having a good time: HAPPY PADDY'S DAY to all of you!