St. Patrick's Day 2001

Hello lovelies!

Happy belated St. Patrick's day!!! Did you have a good one? Ours was fun fun fun. We went to our local "suburban" pub for some green beer and eats! There was a live band playing and the ambiance was fun.

I have to say though...it was MUCH tamer than my St. Patrick's Days past. MUCH TAMER.

By far my best St. P's day was in 2001. I was much younger, much wiser and much more unattached!!!

On Friday, March 16 I was sitting with two of my friends, I"ll call them girl and boy (they were a couple) in a bar in the market. It was shortly after 8 p.m. and we had just ordered supper. As we waited, we tried to plan what we should do for St. P's day. Everything we came up with seemed to "typical" and then boy said "where's the best place in North America to celebrate St. P's day???" Why Boston of course!!! We made a spur of the moment decision to go. Literally. SPUR OF THE MOMENT.

We called the waiter over, asked for our meals to go, drove to my apartment where I packed an overnight bag then drove to Kanata to their place so they could pack their bags and we were on our way.

We left Kanata at exactly 10:30 p.m. on the 16th. We had a long drive ahead of us and so many unknowns. We had no idea what we would do and more importantly where we would stay. We finally agreed that it wasn't likely we would find a hotel room on the biggest day of the year in Boston so the decision was made to sleep in the car.

As we got just past Montreal boy shouted "oh my gosh i totally forgot...my sister is in Boston this weekend with her husband, she has a conference." WHAT A FLUKE. Boy called his mom for contact info and we called sister. There goes there romantic weekend, but fortunately they were more than happy to have the three of us stay on the floor of their room.

On the Friday night we made it as far as Magog, Quebec on the Canada-US border. We were exhausted by that point, found a TOTAL dive and got a room for the night. We woke up nice and early and continued our drive to Boston.

We met up with sister and brother in law and spent the day touring with brother in law while sister was at conference. we were pretty tired so it was pretty low key.

After supper we went back to the hotel room and sort of vegged out while watching fight club. Before we knew it, it was about 9:30 or 10 and we were ready to fall asleep. I finally said "this is ridiculous. We came all the way here, get ready we're going out."

We decided we'd try the hotel lobby and take it from there. Oh, I forgot to mention one important point...We weren't at ANY hotel as it turned out. We were at one of Boston's most popular hotels - the Park Plaza! Somehow we went from sleeping in a car to total luxury!

So down to the lobby we went and ordered a round of beers. Truth be told we were exhausted and BORING. But it was totally eating at me that we had come all that way and we weren't doing anything so i told boy to set a timer and we had to have our beers done by the time the timer went off so we could party.

We chugged our beers and went out to find a bar. Luckily there was a totally happening pub right next door so we went in there. Before we knew it, we had all gone our seperate ways and were working the room. The place was a single girl's dream! It was FULL of men in tuxdeos. FULL. It turned out they were from the Clover Club of Boston (I think that's what it was called) and they were all millionaires. I had the greatest time talking with so many men (and a few girls). I happened to meet a guy who invited me to a party he was hosting at the hotel. He said it was in the Presidential Suite. Naturally I thought (to use an Irish expression) he was takin' the piss. I told him he'd regret it if he was lying and asked who I could invite. He said "as many people as you'd like."

NEVER SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO ME...EVER.

I spent the next few hours going around the bar and inviting EVERYONE. I made friends with the manager of the bar, got free booze and free shirts and then Mr. Party Host came over and told me it was party time. I started rounding up the troops and I kid you not, I had an entire entourage following us into the hotel.

He wasn't lying. HE HAD THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE. It was totally absolutely amazing. There were a few fridges and they were all FULL OF BEER. Like PACKED FULL. So we spent a glorious evening with so many cool people with an incredible view over Boston. I remember sitting chatting with people on the window sill with the window wide open. Someone played the grand piano. It was the craziest experience I tell you.

Here are a few pictures of the suite I found online...(you can see the piano in one of them).

As it turned out the guy I met at the bar had the suite because he was part of the Young Republicans of America and they were trying to find a location for their next convention. The Park Plaza was basically "wooing" them...

The later part of the night got a bit fuzzy. I remember meeting an Irish guy and finding this private lounge room and hanging out in there for a bit with him and boy and girl. The problem was we weren't supposed to be in there and nearly got caught so we had to hide out. Then we had to go find this group of girls who had been at the party because there was drama happening. I never quite understood what was going on there.

I finally packed it in for the night when I could take no more but Irish boy came looking for me and pounding on the door. Weird. Funny. Crazy.

The next day we drove back to Ottawa with oh so many stories to share!

See what I mean? It's going to be pretty hard to beat that one...

'night lovelies

me