This is the final countdown!

In a few hours, we'll take the bus to Dublin and then go back to Austria.

We've all really enjoyed our stay in Ireland and have gained so many amazing impressions of this stunningly beautiful country. All of us feel like we have bonded and improved our English and well, that's what this was all about: getting to know other people and getting better at speaking English. I don't think that words can really describe what an awesome time we have had here and how much most of us will probably miss this country!

However, as much as we liked it here, we're also looking  forward to meeting our loved ones, our family, our friends again and something that we cannot wait to see again is surely our cosy, snuggly bed!

I hope that every reader of this blog has enjoyed reading these posts - a lot of effort has gone into them. This probably won't be the last one, some more photos are to come - so watch this space if you want to see them.

Bye bye and xo

Aquarium and singing pub

 Aquarium and singing pub

Today we had our penultimate lessons at the Atlantic language school, which basically means that we saw some of the teachers for the last time. This made many of us really sad, as we feel like we've bonded a lot over this week and we've also had so much fun. Anyway, there's still one day of debates, discussions and acting left and we'll surely enjoy that one.

After school, we had a little lunch break and then we met at the Spanish Arch, from where we walked to the Aquarium. Everybody was absolutely delighted by the weather, which was just gorgeous today - warm temperatures, no rain and a cloudless sky.
Going to the Aquarium was also an awesome experience and we even got to touch some of the maritime species that are living there, e.g. a spider crab or a starfish. Before going back downtown, we made a break at the beach, went into the sea a bit, took beautiful pictures or just relaxed. We tried to enjoy the (for Irish conditions quite unusual) weather as much as possible and had loads of fun.

Later on, we went downtown to a pub (proper Irish ([oyrish]) pronunciation: [poob]) in order to see some artists play trad music. The atmosphere inside the pub was really interesting and it was also fun to watch the musicians play.

Quite sadly, our trip is coming to an end - practically, we just have one day left. We'll make the best out of our last day here, but we are also looking forward to coming back to the country where people drive normally, traffic lights aren't constantly red and you don't see sheep everywhere you look.

Other than that, "thanks a million" for reading today's blog entry and we'll also tell you tomorrow, "what the craic is".

Good night and xo

Treasure hunt and Irish dancing

Treasure hunt and Irish dancing

Have you ever thought about hopping through the room, being laughed at by your teachers? Well, thats's exactly what's happened to us today. But I'll come back to that topic later on...

In the morning, when we were at the bus stop, waiting for our bus to arrive, something that's incredibly rare happened, something that's totally untypical for Ireland ............ it rained, what a surprise! Yet, this could not stop us, so we fought against the rain with (not so) waterproof clothes, and eventually it stopped raining.

Once more, everybody was very fond of the language school and our lessons were utterly interesting. As some of us felt rather peckish, we had a short lunch break, and afterwards, we went on a treasure hunt through Galway, which basically meant that we had to ask complete strangers for information. This once more showed us how open and friendly people in Galway are, because hardly anybody got rejected or an impolite response.

However, some people initially thought that we wanted to persuade them - if you didn't know, there's a referendum (people can decide whether something will be done or not, in Ireland's case, a referendum changes the constitution) this weekend about whether the law permitting gay marriage should become part of Ireland's constitution or not. Therefore, some were a bit mistrustful.

All students who had finished the treasure hunt were allowed to do whatever they wanted - quite a few spent the time shopping (what a surprise!) and some of us were just relaxing on the riverbank and taking beautiful pictures.

After having dinner with our host families, we went back to the Atlantic language school, but this time to take Irish dancing classes.

It was great fun, yet sometimes a bit too complicated, so we ended up jumping around like freaks - much to our teachers' amusement. However, when we told them to dance if they could do it so much better, they stopped talking and laughing. I simply cannot understand what put them off.

Good night and xo

The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher

The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher

Dia dhuit! (This means hello in Irish if you didn't know already.) 

As usual, we started our day with English classes at the Atlantic language school, and the lessons there never fail to impress. We talked about really interesting topics, e.g. whether or not a drug called Juicy Baek (which turned out to be alcohol!) should be legal or if certain questions were (in-)appropriate. Right after the English classes had finished, we headed off to the Cliffs of Moher.  On the way there we saw lots of interesting old castles and so on and we also went through the Burren, a karst landscape, which basically consists of rocks and just a few plants.

When we finally arrived at the car park near the cliffs, we were all eager to see them - and we weren't disappointed! The view was just breathtaking and we took a lot of amazing pictures, which all turned out great, especially because of the weather (slowly, but surely, we are getting used to the Irish weather, so a cloudy day with lots of wind, but no rain means fantastic weather!). Yet, what really needs to be emphasised is the danger of the cliffs - many people die whilst trying to take a cool snap of the cliffs, because they ignore the barricades, climb over them and are then blown off by the wind. Fortunately, we didn't have any tragic incidents there and all students were able to return to their host families alive (even though some people were so knackered that they didn't feel very alive any more).

 

While we were going "home" to our host families, we looked through our photos again and were very pleased, because they looked so nice!

To sum up, today was definitely one of the nicest days so far, especially in terms of weather conditions.

Good night and xo

First English lessons in Ireland and Galway tour

 First English lessons in Ireland and Galway tour

Today was our first day at the Atlantic Language School and even though going to school doesn't normally fill most students' hearts with joy, the vast majority stated that they had really enjoyed the English classes there. Around lunchtime, we were once more allowed to do whatever we wanted. Then we had a guided tour through Galway and found out many interesting things about the city - especially some old Irish legends are just fascinating!

 

Galway is a very interesting city, and in general, it differs quite a lot from Dublin: People seem to be a lot more laid-back, they are way more talkative and polite and cab drivers don't have the desire to kill students (some of us nearly got run over in Dublin!). However, there are also quite a few similarities: the city has this typical "Irish" vibe to it, the people are incredibly open and honestly no pedestrian pays attention to traffic lights. As one Dubliner once told me: "Traffic lights are just recommendations - everybody interprets them differently." You could interpret traffic lights in Ireland the following way:

RED = you can cross the street, just make sure that nobody could potentionally kill you

ORANGE = utter danger! Try to run for your life unless you want to get run over

GREEN = sometimes even more dangerous than red, because some angry drivers may kill you with their angry looks.

This evening we spent either at our host family's or meeting friends, which was great fun.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Cliffs of Moher, so you can look forward to some beautiful pictures!

Good night and xo

Disclaimer: The author does not advise anybody to infringe the road traffic regulations.


 

Irish weather and arrival at Galway

Irish weather and arrival at Galway

Well, the title should say it all - Ireland has properly introduced itself today. We were going on a "Viking tour", a fun attraction, which is especially aimed at tourists. However, the Irish weather had decided that our tour shouldn't be very pleasant, so we were soaked. Fortunately our bus driver was a man with an astonishingly positive attitude, so he told us that the weather was actually great, because we could have got hailed on (his words OBVIOUSLY really calmed us down!), because that had happened before. When we finally got off the tour bus, which was an amphibious vehicle at the same time (hence we also spent some time driving in the canal - more water - hooray!), most of us were shivering due to the horrendous weather. Thus, some were going back to our hostel in order to get changed, whilst the others had some time to kill (a.k.a. shopping).

In the afternoon, a tour guide showed us around Trinity College, where we also got to see some parts of the Book of Kells as well as the Long Hall, the main chamber of the Old Library.

Afterwards we had some more time to do whatever we wanted (eating and, most importantly, shopping).

Then we went back to the hostel in order to fetch our suitcases, however, the bus which was supposed to pick us up at the hostel did not come. Thankfully, the leprechauns that had kidnapped the bus driver soon set him free when they realised that he had not stolen their pot of gold (I'm sorry if you don't understand sarcasm...) and so we could start our journey to Galway.

En route we got to see some of the beautiful Irish landscape, loads of sheep and cattle. Finally, we arrived in Galway, where we were welcomed by our host families and went with them.

This was now the second trick, but the third will follow quick!

However, as we don't want to end up like Max and Moritz, we'll be nice students and go to bed now!

Good night and xo

Hello everybody!

In this blog, we are going to tell you about our little, yet exciting journey to the country of sheep, Saint Patrick, and shamrocks - Ireland.

(Hopefully) each day, you'll be able to read and see what we're doing and seeing.

Today was our first day, which was exciting, but also a bit exhausting.

After a three hour flight, we were all glad to finally land in Dublin, where we experienced the first major differences: people driving on the "wrong" side of the road, new people and signs in Gaelic.

We were all really surprised at how friendly and open everybody was - there were loads of interesting shops to discover, we could see incredibly talented buskers and street artists, who did all a great job.

We are already looking forward to exploring Dubling tomorrow and then going to Galway!
Good night and xo