Von Chiara-Michelle Bencek, 4HLKa
How you’re doing? Yes, exactly. That is the most frequently asked question when you arrive to Ireland.
Our language trip took place from the 19thof September to the 26thof September. For this reason, we met at 11:30 in front of our school and went by bus to Vienna. There we should have had a flight at 16:30 but that’s what we thought at the beginning when we suddenly heard the announcement that there’s a storm over Ireland.
Our flight was delayed for approximately 7 hours whereas the flight to London was also delayed but just for 2 hours. We were all in bad mood because just waiting at the airport was terrible! Frankly, we took off at half past 10 and our flight took about 2 hours and 40 minutes. We arrived at Dublin airport at midnight (Greenwich Mean Time) and there we had to wait on the plane for another hour because there was a problem with the transport to the airport. Nevertheless, we tried to stay calm because we were looking forward for our stay in Dublin.
We took a bus from Dublin Airport to Foxrock where our host families were waiting for us und picked us up. So we arrived at our host families’ place at 2 a.m and at first we were quite uncertain and apprehensive because we knew that we would live with strangers for a week. In fact, we were all content and satisfied with our host families because they were all really lovely and hospitable.
The next day we had to get up really early in the morning because our first English classes were waiting for us. We were all totally exhausted the first day because of our delayed flight the fact that we only slept for a few hours. Anyhow our 4 days of English classes went by really fast and we really benefited from them because we learned a lot. Furthermore, we had quite a lot of fun during our classes with our two teachers.
On Saturday we went to Belfast by bus. The trip took about 3 hours with a short break. There we visited a market where they mostly had self-made things.
Then we had 2 hours of free time and most of us went shopping or ate something. Afterwards we went to the Titanic Museum and it was breath-taking because it’s so big and the architecture of the museum is beautiful. There we had 2 hours to walk through the museum by ourselves and it was really stunning. After that we went back home to Foxrock.
On Sunday we had a full free day. The vast majority of us went to Bray to the seaside or went to the city center. A few days before we went to Howth and walked beside the cliffs. That day we had beautiful weather and the whole trip was amazing.
During our free time we went shopping, to cafes, pubs and much more. We had a lot of fun together and we got a nice feeling of living in Ireland. One evening we had an hour of Irish dancing with a professional dancer. It was real fun but the steps which she showed us were a little bit difficult but we made good progress in a short time.
We also had a lesson of Gaelic Sports in St Mary’s Park on afternoon. Gaelic football is a mixture between soccer, American football and rugby and it was really cheerful but unfortunately the time passed by too quickly. One day we visited the EPIC Museum and there we learned a lot about the emigration of the Irish. It’s an amazing museum.
Our flight back to Vienna went well and we arrived at our school at 19:30. In fact, all in all it was a really pleasant trip because we gained a lot of experience during our stay. Dublin is a really interesting and lively city and we totally recommend the trip for all other classes. For some of us it was also the first trip somewhere by plane and I’m sure that it was an unforgettable experience for all of us. Our class is totally looking forward to our trip to France next year.
