School, Family and Friends

Well now I'm already in Ireland for almost three weeks and there were so many things happening: new family, new town, new friends, new culture, new language.
But let's start at the beginning.
On Sunday the 28 of august I finally arrived in Ireland. My flight landed at 18.45 and I was so nervous I couldn't sit still. I was looking out of the window and I couldn't take everything in at once. There were so many new impressions and I think I was glued to the window.
When I got out I had to go through Immigration first but because there were so many people travelling to Ireland it took a long time.
Because my host mother had an accident she couldn't collect me from the airport but her sister came with Aoife (my host sister) and Sofie (my host sister from Norway) and they drove me home. But before that we had to collect my host mother Bernie from the hospital before we drove home. It wasn't a bad injury and I was glad for that. The drive was quite long and I was so tired I almost fell asleep in the car. But I looked out of the window and it was just beautiful. On our drive from Dublin to Athlone, I saw the sunset and it was just beautiful. The colours, a spectrum from a light pink to red to orange and fading into the light blue from the sky. Soon the darkness of the sky covered everything and I even saw some beautiful little stars and I saw the "Grosser Wagen". I love Ireland.
Roisin (my host sister) was waiting at home and we had pizza for dinner.
That was my first impression of my Irish family. They are all very nice and talkative and I've liked them ever since the first time I saw them.

On the next day Sofie and I met Anna, an exchange student from Italy, she lives with a friend of Bernie so we went looking for our uniforms together. I actually like wearing the uniform because I've always wanted to wear one. The shoes were horrible, but because everyone's wearing them I got used to them. I'm actually wearing a guy's sweater because the girls should wear one with a round neck but Bernie had this one at home so I'm just wearing this one.

 

This is my school uniform.

I'm going to the Athlone Community College it's not far away from my house. We go to school by bus and the bus stop isn't far away from home either and the driver is very nice. The Community College is extremely big and there are many students. It's a big red and orange building with a big football field. I actually like it. There is a canteen and we eat lunch there and after that we can go outsie and watch people playing soccer, gaelic football or hurling.

On the day before we went to school for the first time, Sofie, Anna, Emanuele (another italian guy) and I met our Area Rep May and we went to Costa to get to know each other and if we had any questions we could ask her. She was really nice and I had a lovely afternoon.

Because I'm in 5th year I had to go to school on Thursday the 1st of september.

We had something like an opening ceremony first when the deputy principal told us in which base, english and maths class we are in. I'm in class R50 and my teacher is Ms Golding. They gave us our timetable and a list of the subjects we could choose.

During this ceremony I was sitting next to Sofie and Anna and I was extremely nervous, I mean it was my first day with a school uniform. We probably looked really lost so the guys that sat next to us had to explain everything. They were very nice, I'm glad we had them or else we still wouldn't get anything.

Like every first day it was really lively and exciting but we couldn't choose our subjects because everyone was really confused. Throughout the next few days we got everything sorted out and I finally could start school for real. I have to take maths, english, extra english (for every national student), economics (for every national student as well) and french.

The niveau really is different compared to the one in Switzerland. We have school from 9.00 until 15.15 or 15:55 and we have a 11:00 break and a lunch break at 13:15. Forme this is like holidays. We have much homeworks but they're quite easy so there's no stress like back home.

During lunch time I'm eating with Sofie, Anna, Gergely (from hungary) and Wiktor (polish guy). They're really nice and I'm glad I already made some friends.

Athlone, the village that's next to my little town is very nice. There are two shopping centers and many stores and even a cinema. Anna, Sofie and I went to watch "Bad moms" and it was really funny. We're going to town every weekend because we have to buynew school stuff but also to see more of it. The little shops are so cute because they're all a different colour and it's so nice to look at them.

I haven't seen that much of Ireland except for one of the most important things: the Shannon river. It flows through Athlone so I saw it quite a lot of times.

 

 

This is the SHANNON RIVER. It looks so stunning I love it. Two friends from school (the one that helped us on our first day: Adam and Jason) said that when the water is low you can even walk over it!

This is my house.

It's really open and white and it's comfortable. Sofie and I are sharing a room together on the second floor and we are getting along very well. I'm incredibly glad. I'm already feeling quite at home here. I even mowed the lawn once the gras was dry (because it was always raining the gras didn't dry and you can't mow it if it's wet)

My family is really really nice. Roisin and Aoife don't live at home anymore, Aoife works and lives in Dublin and Roisin goes to University but they both come home during the weekend. Bernie and Sofie and I get along really well and we always have dinner together. The food here in Ireland is different from home for example they always eat vegetables AND mashed potatoes AND fries AND garlic bread AND chicken. Bernie even asked me if I want fries with my pizza. For them that is normal but for me it is so weird. But I love potatoes so I have no problem with that. Sofie doesn't like potatoes at all so she's gonna have a problem.
I'm feeling really well here and I've already opened up quite a lot.

A girl in my french class called Catherine teaches the violin so yesterday I had my first violin lesson in Ireland. She's teaching me a Jig and it's really funny to learn Irish songs. I'm glad that I'm able to continue playing the fiddle here and that I can learn Irish songs is incredible.

I'm trying to go riding a horse but we still have to find a good place but if that doesn't work then I'm going to join the gym. Sofie, Anna and I went to the gym this Tuesday and it's quite nice (I know you guys won't believe it but it's true. I went to the gym.)

All in all I'm incredibly happy here and I enjoy every second of it.

Lots of love

Shannon