With Erasmus+ to Ireland

This school year we were able to send a student to Ireland for 4 months through the Erasmus+ programme. You can get a great impression of her stay in her report below:

The first few weeks went very well. I made friends quickly and got along well with my host family. It took me a while to remember all the names here, but now I can do that too. The first few days the weather was very nice, over 25 degrees, but then it got very cold. I am picked up by the school bus at 8:20 am and school starts at 9 am and ends at 3:45 pm. I arrive at my house at 5pm, because I’m the last one to get on the bus (so I can sleep longer), but I’m also the last one to get off. The journey takes an hour each way… After school, the first thing I do is take off my uniform and have tea and biscuits with Fran, my host mother. After that, it’s usually relaxed. I do my homework and walk the dogs. I usually go to bed early because we have a long school day and it is very tiring to speak or understand English all the time. Many teachers and students have a strong accent, which takes some getting used to. But I already speak English much more fluently than I did three weeks ago.

There are many other international students besides me. Most of them are from Spain. I am in my fourth year, which in Ireland is called TY (transition year). It’s an optional year where there are lots of excursions and lots of international students. Last Wednesday, for example, we went to an adventure park with the whole year. It was very cold, about 10 degrees, but we went to a water castle in an even colder lake. The castle was built like a course – very cool, but just in every way. Many students were sick for a while afterwards.
At the weekend, if the weather is good, I go horse riding with my host mother in the morning. She has 4 horses, 11 dogs, 6 cats, 5 rabbits, 3 goats, cows, chickens and ducks. So I’m rarely bored on her farm. I help quite a bit with the animals, as she has a lot of other things to do as well.
Ireland made a very good impression on me and I would recommend it to anyone to do an exchange here to Ireland. If I could, I would even stay for a whole year.