Marika Michalska, an Irish exchange student at Boise State University, has a very particular St. Patrick’s Day checklist when she's back in Belfast:
- Get up early.
- Face paint.
- Guinness.
- Big hat (with attached ginger beard).
- Festive tattoos.
- Guinness.
- Green wardrobe.
- and Guinness.
Check, check, check, check, check, check, check and check.
True, she’s spending this St. Patrick’s Day in Boise, but she’s bringing the “Saint la ‘le Padraig” with her.
“Oh yeah, we’ve got the Irish flag on the wall: and our living room looks crazy, with a giant yellow, orange and green balloon arch,” she said, with a big laugh. “Yeah, it’s all happening.”
Irish native Ruth Prince also happens to be at Boise State. She’s the director of International Student and Scholar Services at BSU’s Center for Global Engagement.
“My family all from Ireland and the north of Ireland,” said Prince. “We go back a ways.”
Michalska and Prince visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice; and in between some pretty big laughs, they talked about what Americans get right (and wrong) about St. Paddy’s Day, Guinness, Oscar winner Cillian Murphy, and why “Bangers and Mash” is “always a winner,” and a hundred times better than Corned Beef and Cabbage.
Find reporter George Prentice@georgepren
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