Hello, Hello!!!
This is the first blog post from Ireland. Every Monday, we will explain a bit about our daily life here and the things we do together on Saturdays.
The arrival on Wednesday was great. As soon as we got off the plane, we could feel that cool, fresh air typical of Ireland. We had gone from 22°C in Spain to only 13°C here! I guess we will get used to the weather change little by little. The kids spent the whole flight asking for water because they were thirsty. One of them even convinced a passenger to buy a bottle of water with some of their own money.
As we were heading to the bus that would take us to our host families, Guille showed up with four bottles of water, and the kids couldn’t stop thanking her, saying that at that moment, there was nothing more valuable for them. Once we arrived in Carrigallen, the families were waiting for us, and everyone slowly said goodbye to each other to start their immersion with their new Irish families.
On Friday, we were able to visit some of the students at their schools. They all looked happy in their classrooms, and it really seemed like they were slowly becoming just like any other student among their classmates. Even some of them were wearing the school jumper! Some of them even took a Spelling test that same morning with the rest of their classmates, and the results positively surprised their teachers. In the next few days, we will finish visiting the remaining schools.
On Saturday morning, we met again in Carrigallen to start the weekend with a fantastic English class. This week’s class started a bit earlier than usual, around 9:30. Our first Saturday had an early morning and arrival but for the next ones we’ll have the opportunity to sleep and rest a little bit more. Some of the kids were a little nervous, but that’s normal for the first days. With Sarah, the teacher who will be with them for the whole nine Saturdays, they played some games and did some exercises to start getting used to the Saturday English classes.
After the English class, which lasts about an hour and a half, we had our packed lunch around 11:00, got on the bus, and headed to Longford, a town further south. There, we did our first Saturday activity: we went bowling. The kids had a blast. We made three different teams, and they played on three lanes. Bruno won on one lane, while Javier and Pau won on the other two. We discovered some great bowlers among the kids! The games were really exciting! We finished playing around 1:00 PM and went to eat. The menu was chicken nuggets, sausages, and fries, which the kids really enjoyed. They also tried Gravina for the first time. It is a typical juice here, but it turns out they didn’t like it much. In fact, they found it disgusting!
After lunch, they got to spend awhile playing at the arcade. They played Air Hockey, rode motorcycles, played pinball, and even broke the basketball hoop record several times. Sebas U and Bruno also challenged each other in Pool, a type of billiards. Finally, after a good time playing and having fun, we took the bus back around 3:00 PM, which took us back to Carrigallen, where our families were waiting for us again to pick us up and spend the rest of the day with them.
