Sara's exciting arrival to Ireland

Hi, my name is Sara! I am 14 years old, and I am from Spain. 

On 27^th August 2021, I left my country to spend four months in Kilkenny (Ireland), but finally, I was so happy there, that I spent one whole year in school. I didn´t travel a lot until then, so I will remember it like my first and best long travel. 

I always wanted to learn English, and when my parents said to me that I could travel to Ireland to learn the language, but also learn about their culture, traditions and meet new people… I didn’t think twice. 

On the day of my flight, I was so nervous because I knew that I wouldn´t be able to do the same things as in Spain. I would miss my family and friends, but I knew that I was going to make a lot of new friends and I was going to meet a lot of amazing people. When I arrived in Ireland, a bus took me to a bus stop where my host family was waiting for me. I had a host sister from Denmark and a host brother from Italy, they helped me a lot to improve my English in the first few days. 

On one of the first days, we went to “Kilfane”, it is an example of a garden from the romantic period of the 1790s. We had a great time there; we laughed a lot and I think that was the moment when we realized that we were going to spend a lot of good time together. We had a lot in common and we were happy. That day, I think our friendship began. 

On August 30^th, came the moment I feared the most, my first day at an English school. I was in an all-girls school. Everyone was so friendly and nice; a girl explained to me what they did in the last 2 years of business studies. 

Everyone had curiosities and wanted to know more about my country, the language and more. All the teachers were very nice to me and if you don’t understand something, they will happily explain it to you. The people there are so happy, friendly and generous, no one should have too many problems. 

Every Friday and weekend, the whole family watched movies, series, television shows. We often watched mystery series, because we loved to guess who the murderer is, the victim… It was very interesting. We saw the entire series of “Derry Girls” in two nights, we had a very good time. 

Sometimes my host brothers and I would watch movies together, we loved to watch Disney or kids’ movies. It is a very good way to start watching movies in English. You easily get used to watching television in English and you don’t realize that it is not your language. 

We often went to very beautiful places such as castles, boats, villages and so many more. In Ireland, there are many places to visit whenever you want and most of them have a story behind them. We visited “Dunbrody Famine Ship Experience”, in New Ross. This ship is an authentic reproduction of an emigrant ship from the 1840s, we learned a lot from the emigrant’s experiences. Another day, we went to the “Kells Augustinian Priory”, a castle with a very old and interesting history. We needed to go through a lot of sheep to get into the castle and it was a lot of fun.