Marching Illini Ireland tour

The Trojan Marching Band in front of Parliament in London! 01/01/2011

Melissa and me before the
St. Patrick's Day parade! 03/17/2014

Music is a common language that people across the world can share and enjoy together. 

For this reason, the ability to play music will present opportunities for travel. For myself specifically, marching band has allowed me to travel abroad for some of the most unique experiences I'll ever have. Four years ago, I traveled with the Downers Grove North Trojan Marching Band to London to play in the New Year's Day parade. And a week ago, I traveled with the Marching Illini to Ireland to perform in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin.

So basically, whoever says band isn't cool is lying.

When I first heard that the MI was going to Ireland, I was ecstatic. As many of you know, Illinois' football team is, to put in nicely, struggling, and it doesn't look like a bowl game trip is in my future. Even when Illinois went to the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl in San Francisco three years ago, there wasn't enough money for the whole band to go. So I, as a lowly freshman, was left at home.

For the past few months Melissa and I have been planning for this trip from abroad — arranging for people to pick up our uniforms and piccolos (100,000 thank you's, Ashley and Jared!), listening to YouTube videos of Runaway Baby and trying to memorize the music without a piccolo, finding a "hostel" for the night before the band arrived (probably only Melissa will understand those quotation marks), and trying to figure out how and when to meet up with the band. Luckily, everything turned out in the end.

Photo credit: lonelyplanet.com

1. Getting to Ireland

The day before we were to take off for Ireland, I printed my boarding passes and realized my connection flight in London wasn't within Heathrow Airport, but from Gatwick to Heathrow. I had to make an AIRPORT transfer.

Later, Melissa tried to check-in online, but eventually realized that her payment for the flight never went through. AKA she had no way to get to Ireland 12 hours before we were supposed to leave.

So, we ended up on separate travel paths, and eventually met up in the Shannon Airport in Ireland. I paid for an overpriced bus transfer between Gatwick and Heathrow (especially since the dollar is weaker to the pound than to the euro) and Melissa paid too much for a last-minute flight, but we successfully traveled alone and got to our hotel just before midnight.

2. Limerick

Melissa and I had about half a day to kill in Limerick before the rest of the band arrived, so we set out on Friday morning to explore the city. We also had to feed ourselves that day, so our first stop was Aldi, which was conveniently right outside the hotel. We settled on Nutella and a loaf of bread for breakfast, and lunchmeat and the rest of the bread for lunch. That sure made us feel like broke college kids. But I have to say, it was delicious cheap food.

Some of the MI started arriving around 4 p.m. There were a ton of problems with flights being delayed and cancelled because of an Aer Lingus strike, so the band arrived sporadically, with some not getting to Ireland until Saturday! Seeing everyone again was so surreal — it felt like I was entering a different life. I've essentially been on vacation for a few months, and they've been in Chambana. But it was so fun to share stories and settle back in with my MI family, especially with my piccs!

3. Cliffs of Moher

The cliffs were breathtaking and gorgeous. As the MI was split into two hotels in Limerick (as not all hotels are equipped to handle an influx of 250 people), it was also where I finally saw the rest of the band! And with 100% attendance, squad 41 was reunited. 

Squad 41 at the Cliffs!

4. Dublin St. Patrick's Day parade

News video clip

The MI was the last group in the parade — AKA the grand finale, the best for last, et cetera. Before we stepped off, we met bands from Germany (whose members were taking smoke breaks in between warming up — that was different), Louisiana State University and a couple of high school bands from the East Coast.

The parade itself went by so quickly. It was a two-mile route and we marched for more than an hour, but there was so much to look at and remember to do that it felt like it lasted 20 minutes. I was in the front row of the band, so I really had to pretend that I knew what I was doing. I was prepped a little bit before we started — modified attention position, we'd alternate between Illinois March and Runaway Baby, the tempo was a lot faster in Runaway Baby so be ready to walk faster. The grand finale to the modifications, which turned out to be new for everyone, was that we would do horn flashes during Runaway Baby while marching. In theory that sounded great, but in practice it was so difficult. I wish I had a video of myself doing figure 8's with my head while trying to play the music and marching in a straight line at the same time.

A snapshot from the live feed of the parade.

Anyway, with all that going on, I actively had to tell myself to look around while we were marching. There were 500,000 people at the parade, all decked out in green and Irish flags, some hanging off statues and others reaching out over the barriers to touch us. At one point I had someone stick an iPhone in my face and take video while we were playing in place. At multiple points during the parade, we broke off to do meet and greets. During one of these, I heard someone yell "Kirsten!" and there was Muriel, who I work on the copy desk with at The Daily Illini and who is studying abroad in Dublin! The luck of the Irish must have made that happen.

During these meet and greets, I also heard comments from the crowd that they loved how happy and excited we all looked. It's so easy for these sort of parades to be intimidating, such that you worry the whole time about how it's going. However, I think most of the MI was able to let that go and soak everything in for what it was. Sure, mistakes were made. But we couldn't help but smile through it all, and I think the crowd enjoyed that.

The piccolo section!

5. Guinness Storehouse

Right after the parade and after our boxed lunches (I had missed those!), we headed to the Guinness Storehouse to perform. The Storehouse is the tourist-y part of the brewery, which is a huge employer in Dublin. The Storehouse has multiple levels with a common, open central area, and different sections circled on different levels. The piccolos were on the third level, and we all looked down to the floor level to see the drum majors and Professor Houser conducting. The effect was amazing. The music boomed throughout the building, and I loved seeing the happy looks on the tourist's faces as we played. During low brass cheer, we broke off from the railing and started circling around unsuspecting visitors. Only then did they look a little scared.

After we played, we took a tour of the Storehouse and sampled beer along the way, which will most likely be the one and only time I'll be allowed to drink in uniform. But man, Guinness is good!

6. St. Patty's Day festivities!

Surprisingly, the eve of St. Patrick's Day was the crazier and busier night. Melissa, Rachel and I went out with a group of trumpets on Sunday night and we all came across one area where there were a lot of pubs in a really concentrated area, and people were spilling out into the streets, drinking and having fun. When it was time to head back to the hotel, eight of us piled into a five or so-person taxi. The driver, a sweet old guy, warned us that he'd have to pull of the road and people would have to get out if we came across police, but we disregarded that, thinking it wouldn't happen. But sure enough, 10 minutes or so into the ride, there was a group of police cars at the upcoming intersection, so the driver pulled to the side of the road. Alek and Megan hopped out, and the driver told them to walk to the intersection and cross the street, and he'd wait for them around the corner. We got a kick out of that, and made sure to thank the driver profusely.

The next night we headed to the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which is a pretty, cobbled-street area with lots of bars. We headed into a bar that was playing some oldies tunes, and we joined a group of British guys that were having a great time dancing.

As we were leaving Ireland the next day and a lot of our buses to the airport were at 3:30 a.m., we decided to stay out all night until we had to load the buses. That was an idea that was great at the time but one that made the guy sitting next to me on the plane ask if I'd had a rough night and also one that made me fall asleep during class the next day.

But was everything worth it?

Of course.

May the road rise to meet you, may the wind blow at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. The rains fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

                                                                         — Irish Blessing