Dear friends in Holland!
Time is flying! I can hardly imagine that I am back in the Netherlands in about a week! I am really looking forward to go back and see my boyfriend, family and friends again, but on the other hand I would be very strange to leave Dublin. Dublin feels like home for me!
My essays are almost finished, my last presentation is done and I got my first grade already, an A (=10!). Yeay! The grading system is totally different than in Holland, and it also differs per University. In Ireland, it is not hard to pass a course, but to pass it with a good grade seems to be quite difficult. Interesting! This last week I planned many goodbye parties, pub visits, dinners and I also spent a lot of time walking around in the city centre, to ‘capture the feeling of Dublin’ and taking pictures! This weekend I am going to a rugby match in the AVIVA stadium, which is the biggest and newest stadium in Ireland. After the match my boyfriend is coming! J He is going to help me moving all my stuff and takes an extra bag with him, haha! On Tuesday morning very early, we are taking the boat from Dublin to Liverpool and on Wednesday evening we have the night boot from Hull back to Rotterdam. So Thursday morning at 8.15 I am back home! Strange, strange, strange! But I can’t wait to see everybody and give them a big hug again!
Since my last blog, many things happened here! As I wrote in my last blog, it started snowing in Dublin about two weeks again, which is quite exceptional for Ireland. The most exceptional thing was that it didn’t stop snowing for 10 days, which resulted in a snow-white Dublin. The Irish were not at all prepared to this (and they didn’t had salt and/or sand to put on the roads to make them less icy), which meant that the busses were not driving anymore, shops were closed, lectures were cancelled and everybody stayed inside for a couple of days! A message we got from Trinity stated that “Due to the deteriorating weather conditions and the weather forecast for further adverse weather tomorrow and the resulting health and safety concerns [...] all scheduled teaching for undergraduate and postgraduate courses and evening lectures/seminars has been cancelled.” Could happen, of course, but the funniest part of the story is that there was not even 10 cm of snow! I liked it very much, but the most people here were totally shocked and had no idea how to deal with it. By this time, the weather has become much better and warmer, so most of the snow is gone. But the weather forecasts are predicting more snow for the weekend..!
My sister was here for the weekend as well a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit afraid that her plane couldn’t arrive due to the snow, but fortunately she managed to get here! We had a great weekend together and spent a lot of time chatting and drinking hot chocolate inside! It was so cold! Last weekend I visited a real German Christmas market and enjoyed the combination of mulled wine and Irish live music and I went to a debate, organized by the Hist, the oldest and most prestigious society at Trinity. It was great to have been present there and I was impressed by the quality of their speeches. They were so good! Furthermore I finally celebrated my birthday last weekend! My birthday was the 11th of November, but on that day my parents were here and my boyfriend was about to arrive in the evening and I have been busy with visitors and trips since that day. ;) But last weekend I finally had time to celebrate it! Amrei and I wanted to celebrate both our birthday and combine it with our farewell. It was a great evening and night and everybody enjoyed it! Great!
All in all, I had the time of my life here in Ireland! I made a lot of international friends (and I am definitely going to visit some of them over the next year) and I really enjoyed the friendly Irish people, the beautiful country, the great and lively city of Dublin full of music on every hour of the day (best city in Europe, and I didn’t travel outside Europe so far ;)) all trips I made! And of course I enjoyed all messages and post cards from Holland and to show the city to my visitors! Besides all these great experiences, I also learned who my true friends are (both in positive and negative ways, in Holland and in Dublin), improved my fluency in English, and of course that I can handle an adventure like this on my own!
I uploaded all my pictures to my Picasa album, (http://picasaweb.google.nl/110111446223550966554/) I hope you enjoy them, because I have many of them! ;)
With love and see you all in January!
Charlotte
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