September starts and school begins!

With the beginning of September, I left the DCU and met my host family. They live in Dalkey which is in the south of Dublin and a lovely area to live.

There are some pretty shops, a harbour from where you can see Dalkey Island and, if you are lucky, you can see a couple of seals swimming in the ocean. My host family’s house is on a hill near a park called “Killiney Hill Park” and you can see the sea from their terrasse.

I was very nervous when I met my host family because I did not want to make any mistakes in the first days and wanted to get along with them very well. I realized that there was no need for feeling pressure because they were really open and welcomed me with open arms.

When I arrived at their house, I had a chat with my host mum, we were eating self-made scones and then she showed me around. We went to see my school which is called “Loreto Abbey Dalkey” and is located right next to the sea.

When we came back home, she showed me my room where I unpacked my suitcase. Afterward, we went to the city and bought my school uniform which is dark green. In the evening, I helped my host mum preparing the dinner and I really enjoyed eating something else than the food we had in quarantine camp (that was really not good).

The dining room and the kitchen have huge windows where you can see all over the sea and Dublin. I was really fascinated by this because we do not have that at home.

My host father noticed that and switched off the lights and put a camping light in the middle of the table so that we could see it getting darker and all the lights of Dublin. All in all, it was a really nice evening.

On the first day of school, my host mum brought me there and went with me to the office which was really good because I was very nervous. I had to change some of the subjects last minute but then the secretary showed me the way to my first classroom. I am in 5th year that is the first of the two last years in Ireland before graduating.

My school is an all-girls- school and everyone has to wear the school-uniform which was very unusual for me. I think that it is harder to distinguish people, especially when you are a new student, and to estimate people because style tells you very much about a person’s personality. The school uniform also consists of a skirt that was not very comfortable the first days.

In the first class, all the girls introduced themselves and some of them had the same class with me afterwards, so I went with them to the next room. In the first break, my English teacher introduced me to a friend group with who I stayed from this time forth.

I have been to a German class at my school too which was very funny because the teacher and I had different ways to pronounce the words and it was quite interesting to see how the language is taught and how it is spoken.

Overall, I can say that the classes are easier here than the classes I have in Germany and that I knew loads of the things the teachers taught us so that it was just like learning new vocabulary.

I never had any difficulties understanding what is going on and it is pretty cool to speak two languages (nearly) fluently. Our school has very advanced technologies like school Wi-Fi and using iPads and eBooks for the classes.

It has many advantages like the bag being not as heavy anymore or having all the books with me all the time which is very convenient but I sometimes prefer working with “real” books.

After school (school starts at 8:55am and finishes most of the time at 3:10), I always go for at least a small walk, to get your head free and get a break from listening to English conversations all the time which was really exhausting at the beginning.

Although Ireland is well-known for the bad weather and loads of rainy days, I was really lucky this year.

I only had up to 6 days of rain in 2.5 months which is very unusual and I enjoyed walking along Killiney beach in the sun.

Check out Henrike’s next blog post here