St. Pat's in Boston. Day Two

Well, seeing as how our gang was already in the hub of drunken irish america, we figured that it would just be criminal not to attend the St. Patrick's day parade and witness the madness firsthand. Some of Ellie's friends were in town for it also so we had to get down there to meet them around noon. We hit the red line and made our way to the Broadway station.



The parade was in the "Southy" neighborhood which is famous for being drunk and white and dangerous; a la "The Departed". We saw the bad signs from the very beginning. The subway was so crowded that we couldn't even reach the platform. We were waiting a minute here, a minute there until we finally packed in, all 6 of us. Hungover and surly. My annoyance level was already high.

We got off and were greeted by total madness. I had never seen a street that crowded. First thing we saw was a horse drawn Budweiser carriage followed closely by a very out of place Star Wars contingency that left everyone scratching their heads. (However, it was by far the neatest thing in the parade.)



We pushed our way through and found a decent vantage point to watch the activities from where we could listen to all the racist honkies call people "faggots" and "chinamen". It felt like whatever historical purpose this holiday ever had was long since lost on the lowest common denominator of society in Boston who just live for loud confrontations and public puking. It made me sad to be half Irish! Thankfully, our group didn't get hit with any of this racist nonsense firsthand, but we definetely heard it around us. Not alot but enough to be noticeable.

We had to escape. We attempted to hide out in a decent looking restaurant/bar sort of away from the crowd, but everywhere you went was charging $10 to $15 just to get inside. Presumably just to avoid getting lynched or beaten on the street. We couldn't find Ellie's friends and assumed it was best just to get the hell out of there. We walked a bit more and then escaped to the least rowdy part of Boston we could possibly think of...

...Harvard! The mecca of trust fund nerds and dudes that we could probably beat up!

We were all starving and grumpy and found a sweet little bar on the outskirts of Harvard square that served up some mean double cheeseburgers and lobster melts. A couple beers and irish coffees later and we were all back on track :) After that we toured around the area a bit more, hitting up the John Harvard bar where Leile's roomate Cheryl and her boyfriend came to meet us. We all got fairly fucked up there over the next few hours. It was grand. A pretty good local microbrewery. Kuau, Leile and I reminisced on the old days and filled everyone in on some of our wackier old stories.

To follow that up we had a delicious (except for the homemade pickles), indian dinner. And shit man, by the end of that, I was properly wasted. Ready for bed time. Leile's girlfriend drove us home thank Zeus, and being the smart guy that I am, upon reaching the comfort of home away from home, I proceeded to just drink, and drink and drink until my cramped little airbed became the most wonderful little slice of heaven imaginable. I was done. We had been up for about 16 hours and had been drinking steadily for about, 12 of those. Good times overall. I'm glad we experienced a classic american shitstorm like the St. Patty's parade in Boston firsthand. We survived and now we know that it just wasn't meant for queers and chi-nee like us.

Oh boy...Day 3 update soon to come!! You can't even wait, can you?!?