Shamrock Festival

It looks like everybody`s very into Ireland lately, and not only because many of the people I know moved to the green island. In fact now it`s time to celebrate St Patrick`s Day. In spite of not being Irish, and not even Catholic really, I still did my part to celebrate this important Irish holiday.



Yesterday I went to an event at the RFK stadium (the same of my first baseball game) in DC: the Shamrock Festival. For the Brazilians, I would say it`s a sort of Pop Rock. For the Italians, I would compare it to Festivalbar (but bigger).



In general, I had a lot of fun. I got to listen to "Irish rock", which, I found out, I like very much :) Only, I was a little bit too tired. In fact, my day started early on Saturday as I had to wake up at 6:15 am to go to my TOEFL class. As soon as the class ended, I took the metro and went to the festival with my friend from Indonesia, Isia. In the metro, we already started feeling a little misplaced: everybody was wearing green t-shirts, green sweaters, green make-up, green head-bands, antennae, shamrock sunglasses, etc. My friend and I were dressed in regular clothes, instead. When we got to the festival, we bought a green St Patrick`s necklace, so that we wouldn`t feel so misplaced any more. We also hung around a little bit, met some friends, listened to some music. When Ania and Adam came, we also got some beer (just budweiser...no Guinness, sigh :( ) and we took a whole lot of pictures together. After a while, Isia left and we hung around for a little bit more. We listened to some more rock groups, and finally we left.



The way back in the metro was also exciting: green people filled in the wagons of every train, and populated every metro station. By the time I got off the metro, though, I couldn`t see any more green people and the last part of the trip was a little lonely. To cheer me up I bought a Mc Donald`s apple pie :)



Back to St Patrick`s Day, there are a few things I think are interesting:

• "Shamrock" is an English word, true, but it comes from the Irish and it means "clover"
• St. Patrick`s Day is actually on March 17th (although people seem to celebrate it only during the weekend)
• Irish rock is also known as Celtic rock (correct me if I`m wrong). Researching on the internet I found a quite famous band and I loved listening to it. The name of the band is "Wolfstone" and some of their vieos are availale on youtube or on their official website. I wonder whether the Italian rock band "Modena City Ramblers" could also fit in the Celtic Rock category; listen to this
  

Pets

When I was a little kid, I was used to having pets wandering all around the house: we had dogs, cats, puppies, kittens...ok, not a lot of variety, but still a lot of pets! When I moved to Belo Horizonte, living in an apartment wasn't exactly the ideal environment for a dog or a cat, and also my mom wasn`t really happy about the idea. I really wanted a cat, but I soon gave up, knowing that I would never win the argument with her. In "my American house" both of my host-parents are very fond of animals and they have two nice kitties: Harley, a big male cat who is the sweetest and calmest cat in the world; and Portia, a slim and gracious female cat with a peculiar character. I happen to get along with both them: Harley is just the nicest cat, so that he gets along with practically everybody; Portia is sort of a difficult cat who chooses accurately (and based on only God knows what parameters) the people whom she is going to be friendly with. I happen to be in her graces and I get along pretty well with her...she meows at me to call my attention, she snuggles with me when she`s lonely, she licks, sniffs and kisses me when I pet her. This morning I realized how much I love these cats...and how smart they are. Yesterday Harley spent the whole evening in my bedroom and I thought he would like to spend the night there, too. When it was time to go to bed, though, I couldn't find him anywhere, so I decided to sleep by myself. This morning, at around 6, Harley started to scratch my bedroom door, I opened it and he came inside. I went back to sleep and I realized he jumped on my bed too. Then he came up to me and, with his paw, started to nudge me: hello, hello, wake up.... Since I was trying to sleep, I didn't do anything. Seeing that I wasn't responding to his nudges, with his paw he started touching my cheek...it was so funny :) I really had to wake up...ut I`ve never been waken up by a cat before... The funniest thing, though, is that after I got up he lay on my bed, exactly in the same place where I was lying before he made me get up!! He practically stole my place :P