Harrod's and St. Patrick's Day!

I started off St. Patrick's Day by waking up at 1:30pm. It was wonderful. Although, I was quite disappointed after I lamely pulled open my curtain a few inches and got a peek at the amazingly beautiful weather that I had been missing. Waste of a day? Perhaps, but at least I had my sleep. Michal and I decided to walk down to Harrod's so we could accomplish another big tourist site. It is beautiful inside, grand escalators/stairs that are lined with small balconies. I bought a really cute tin with a man next to a fire engine red phone booth that had triple chocolate chunk biscuits inside. Suddenly, we heard Ave Maria filling the escalator area and went on a hunt to find the source. There on one of the balconies was a woman singing, across from which stood a small audience. She gestured to the shoppers at Harrod's with open arms and took us from a shopping mall to a concert hall. Then, she stopped and Michal and I continued our walk elsewhere through all the various floors and departments. We heard another song again, this time Carmen's Habanera, so we walked out to see a different woman singing from the same balcony. She finished and so we continued to shop, until I heard what I believed to be O mio babbino caro. We ran back just in time to hear the end. I was excited to finally have Michal hear the song I had talked about when I dragged her to Porta Rossa and back to Ponte Vecchio and the Arno when we were in Florence.

When I got back to my house, the St. Patrick's Day party had started in full swing. I made myself a falafel pita for lunch, and bought some cheap wine from Tesco's. We all partied throughout the house, and made it a complete mess, but it was a lot of fun. There were a number of people here I didn't recognize but I met most of them throughout the party. Christine and I decided that we didn't have quite enough to drink, so made a run out to Odd bins and Tesco's for Smirnoff vodka and cranberry juice. We had a funny run-in with the guys at Odd bins and told them they should sell plastic cups and straws and cranberry juice so they could be a one stop shop. They said they'd be willing to sell plastic cups but not straws, and they do have cranberry juice. He pulled up a box of cranberry juice from behind the counter and said "It's made from concentrate." To which Christine replied, "Does that mean we have to add water?" The guys laughed at her and said, "No, you just have to drink it." I was also confused because I didn't know why it was significant to tell us it was made from concentrate. Whatever. We went to Tesco's and found they sell the same thing, but Christine needed dinner and we bought dish detergent so it was still worth the stop. We came back and drank a bit more as everyone started to file out to other parties/eat dinner/get ready for bed. Mind you this was only about 8:30pm. However, most people began drinking sometime between 11am and 3pm. I hung out with Marilyn and Liz in their room and watched Monster-in-Law on Betsy's bed while she and Mike were out. They have the comfiest bunk beds! Michal and Leor randomly walked in while I was watching but then left after seeing I wasn't going to move very far in my pj's... on st. patrick's day... at 10:30pm. Yes, it was rather pathetic. But now I'm going to bed so I can hopefully wake up on time tomorrow for the festival and parade downtown, research for my team business strategy project, and go to a 3 1/2 hours team meeting. Goodnight!