As a former Erasmus-student, I can only tell everyone who is planning his or her Erasmus semester/year at the moment that choosing a city is enough. Detailed plans for travelling the country? Not necessary! Every European country that is a part of the Erasmus agreement has willingly decided to let foreign students in and send their own students out. Thus, many universities offer ways to make the lives of Erasmus students a whole lot easier. Lucky for me, I chose a college that offers foreign students the opportunity to form their own society (International Culture Society) in order to plan trips. If that weren’t enough, the college also pays for the bus, which leaves the students to pay for their food and accommodation only. Excited and highly motivated, an elected committee – of which I could proudly call myself a member – started to plan culturally relevant trips which would enable all of us to get a glimpse at the countryside waiting for us outside of Dublin. Here’s a summary of what Ireland had in store for us.
1. Galway – a rough voyage
The day had finally come: Our first trip to another city was planned, our backpacks were packed and we were more than ready to go. At the ungodly hour of 7am, about 45 students of different nationalities were eagerly awaiting their bus to escape for the weekend. Although we were all tired (and some of us even hung-over) you could hear the excitement in the multilingual conversations. At about 8am (after all the Spaniards had finally arrived) we started our trip with a good nap.
The first important stop on this journey was at the Cliffs of Moher, something that is referred to as an extremely beautiful and bewildering natural spectacle. Just as all of our Ireland- guides promised, this was a fascinating sight, where we had but one problem: the weather – who would have guessed? The usual rain was accompanied by wind, very strong wind – 200km/h. The short walk up the hill, from where we could see the cliffs became a torture for our sleepy bodies. When we finally made it up there, some of us tried to jump in order to test the wind’s power, which resulted in short and skinny people nearly being gone with the wind – at least for a few metres.
After refuelling with hot chocolate and trying to get our clothes dry we left for Galway. To be honest, we didn’t really see much of Galway itself, because we were running late. A reason for this might have been our doubtful timetable which constantly clashed with the Spaniards’ lack of punctuality. Having dropped off our bags at the hostel, we headed out for dinner and did what students do best: enjoy the nightlife! Let me here mention that no pub crawl in Galway is complete without loudly roaring Galway Girl.
On the way home every tourist’s dream of Irish stereotypes came true. We were running late again, because a herd of SHEEP was blocking the road. After having witnessed this spectacle, we all knew we had truly embraced the Irish countryside.
2. Dingle – a wet journey to spot a dolphin
Another weekend trip we planned led us to a sleepy little village of about 2000 people. As always, we had slight problems due to the weather. The week we chose for this trip was one of the wettest weeks in Irish history. It basically rained non-stop. Though we almost had to cancel, we somehow managed to start off. The stop on our way to Dingle was the Rock of Cashel. Unfortunately (thank you, rain), it was closed because it would have been too dangerous, but we nevertheless enjoyed the view. The bus ride to Dingle was somewhat disturbing. The destruction caused by the rain was unbelievable. There were entire parks covered with about a metre of water and the bus driver had a really hard time trying to stay on the street.
When talking about Dingle, I have to mention Fungi. Fungi is a bottlenose dolphin that has lived around Dingle Bay for more than 20 years now. He is regularly spotted and is one of the main attractions for visitors. If you ask me, he is the only attraction. To his honour, they have even erected a sculpture. Naturally, we went to see Fungi, but he didn’t show up, which was very disappointing. I blame it on the rain!
Dingle, being as small as it is, didn’t seem to offer many hot spots for going out. Still, we viewed this as a chance to see what was going on in an Irish village. Completely soaked from our wet wait for Fungi, we entered the nearest pub, hoping it would offer live music. This pub was very traditional, just like you see it in films that glorify the past – a great chance for tourists to withdraw from the “new” Ireland of Dublin.
Describing these two trips, I hope I’ve given you an idea of how travelling through Ireland has its ups and downs. But that’s not all we did, we also went Northern Ireland, Limerick and Cork!
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