St. Patrick's week adventures, part 1

I gotta write all this down now before my adventures today leave my head. Look for edits (pictures hopefully, videos extra hopefully, but unlikely) sometime in the near future.

My day started out early (read: 6am), when I woke up to get ready for performance number one of the day. Me and a small group of my fellow dancers performed at the beginning and end of the Four Courts Four Miler this morning. Besides being rather chilly, despite the forecasted 60 degrees and sunny, the performance was fun, mostly because we had to figure out how to fit seven dancers on two platforms of tiny dimensions (4 sq ft on one, and 8 sq ft on the other). It was treble reels for the win here. But the crowd enjoyed it, when they had the opportunity to watch. Mostly, the crowd was running past, finishing their four miles.

After this, we moseyed our way over to IHOP for some delicious breakfast items, being it was only about 11am. The IHOP we ate at was seriously the smallest sit down restaurant I had ever been in, but it was also smack-dab in the middle of Ballston, nestled among office and apartment buildings. Its after this that the day gets really interesting. There's never a dull moment at ShamrockFest!

We got lost and drove through southeast DC. No extra explanation here. It was plain sketchy.

The magical orange wristband. This little piece of paper really got me through the day, and I thank it from the bottom of my heart. Not only did it give me access to all the free drinks I could have (which I really didn't take advantage of), but it also got me backstage access (read: no port-a-potty lines). The only misfortune it brought about was that it was so special and orange. The other VIP wristbands given out were green, and constantly through the day we all had to explain that we are performers, and this wristband is supposed to be our way to access everything. Most believed us.

We performed as a dance school. And I saw a bunch of my sisters watching, not to mention other non-AXiDs out to support me and/or my dance school. It was fun, and I really realized here that I like performing for this sort of crowd. No pressure because they're either drunk and won't remember it tomorrow, or drunk and don't know much about Irish dance. Or both.

A small group and I performed with Carbon Leaf. I'm going to be honest and say I know nothing about this band, other than they were at Shamrockfest today, and that I have one of their songs in my iTunes library, which sadly is not the one we performed to tonight. Again, despite there being a huge crowd, I was completely exhilarated and all sorts of happy feelings. Afterwards, we met with the band for pictures and some t-shirt signing (we all got free shirts), and they seem like genuinely nice and talented people. I can't wait to explore their music more in the near future.

We discovered that they stopped serving alcohol sometime between 6 and 7:30pm. That was a bummer. My little group and I had plans to drink and stay for Dropkick Murphy's, however, our discovery was a buzz kill and we left RFK just as soon as they started their set. We did get to pet the Dropkick Murphy's dog earlier in the day, if that counts for anything.

So ends the highlights of my Saturday adventures! I am seriously hoping this is legible and coherent. It is late, and I've been up for a really long time...

Goals: Rest, heal, turnout

Days till worlds: 40