The day I came to Ireland I jumped in the airplane, put my headphones on and as my favourite band Coldplay sings: “So then I took my turn, oh what a thing to have done, and it was all…” GREEN!
I have been lucky enough to travel a lot. However, the feeling of leaving home, my friends, my family, my beloved puppies for longer than a couple of weeks really hit me when I looked over the plane window and I was here, in Ireland, without a return ticket. However, in that moment I remembered my dad’s wise words, fly and if you feel like crying, well… fly crying.
I did not though; Ireland was love at first sight. The moment I got here, I spread my wings and the wind was green, full of hope, nature and freshness.
So, what is the first thing to do when you land in a foreign country where you are going to spend the next few months? Smile!
A smile goes a long way when picking up your luggage, when greeting the Garda officers, when taking a taxi to go to your accommodation and super important, smile to your new flatmates!
My flatmates are amazing! We even have plans to travel around Europe for a couple of weeks after New Year’s Eve but we built this friendship. We genuinely care for each other and if we see anyone of us busy or worried, we at least ask what is happening. We invite to each other’s soirées, we know we are foreigners and mutual support is very important when living with different people, from different backgrounds and different ways to see life, so this is a great momentum to say: pour your heart out!
While the weeks have gone by, every day I feel more attached to Ireland. I feel that my heart has stopped being red and now it is green. I love everything I do here, my choice of my Masters, which is International Public Policies & Diplomacy, my assignments, my lecturers, my new friends and even I love the feeling of missing my home country. However, I now call Ireland home.
I study at University College Cork, the campus is like a castle, the lecturers are very considered because they know that I am from South America and that I will be struggling to understand certain things, mostly in Politics, but with their help, with my classmate’s support and with a lot of reading, things are easier now. Therefore, my second advise when being here is to read… keep calm and read it again and again and do not ever feel embarrassed to ask, you are not from here, you are allowed not to know everything and no one will judge you because this is what we are here for, to learn!
So what happens next? I have been here for three months, I know the city, the university, even a little bit more of the whole country, but even so, I still wonder what is next? The answer is simple, to keep flying. To spread my wings and feel the green air, the Emerald Isle. I realize there is so much more to see and I have embarked myself upon this beautiful journey to discover all the other colours and sentiments that this magical country has to offer.
Hozzászólások