Irish Diaries, Part 1: Green meadows, cool neighbors and The Ring of Kerry
Today is the 12th day since I've arrived to Ireland, and I finally decided to sit down and write a short post about my stay in the homeland of Oscar Wilde and Guinness beer. For those who don't know, I'm currently an exchange student at the "University of Limerick", which is in the suburbs of Limerick, a small town of about two hundred thousand people.
This post was written in Russian back in Feb 06 2020. Mostly translated with deepl.com
First impression
Obviously, like most people, my introduction to Ireland started at the airport. I arrived at Dublin Airport, where from passport control onwards I was imbued with Irish friendliness. The people I came into contact with on the first day were very friendly and helpful, which was unusual at first. I arrived late at night, so I decided to take it easy and spend the night in a guesthouse near the airport, which I had pre-booked on booking.com. The room cost €59, which is a bit pricey, but the hotel was very close to the airport and also included breakfast, so in general, I think it was worth it.
The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, I boarded a bus to Limerick, which is two hundred kilometres from Dublin. In general, European (Ireland is a member of the European Union, although not part of the Schengen zone) intercity buses are really another level of comfort, they have a toilet, free wifi, power outlets and reclining tables. In the two and a half hours I've had plenty of time to enjoy the view of green Irish meadows, which looks like the wallpaper on Windows XP.
Hostel and neighbors
Having arrived safely in Limerick, I finally found a university and checked into a hostel. The hostels are organised in a student village format, with four to eight students living in each apartment. As a poor and frugal student living from scholarship to scholarship, I chose the cheapest hostel with eight people living together. Despite the fact that in the preferences I had indicated that I wanted to live in a single-sex hostel, after checking in I was surprised to find out that my roommate was a girl, and then it turned out that there were five girls and only two guys living together. The apartments are two-storey, each floor has four rooms and one bathroom, and one common kitchen on the second floor, which already has all the necessary utensils. The hostels also have a free bicycle hire service, and having heard about it, I immediately took my bicycle and managed to ride 12 kilometres around the city on the first day.
I should probably also tell you about my neighbours, who also happen to be very cool guys. A Kazakh, girls from Austria, America, Iceland, Spain and two very positive Germans living under the same roof. In the best European tradition, one guy is gay and one girl is vegan :). All the guys are extremely friendly and before I knew it, during these twelve days I had a chance to go to the cinema with them, attend a few parties, discuss a lot of interesting topics and with a dozen of guys from around the world, cook a lot of different dishes and watch my first Super Bowl.
A trip around the Ring of Kerry
Almost every week the university organises trips to different tourist destinations in Ireland. Last Saturday we toured the Ring of Kerry, a hiking route that takes in local natural and historical attractions. I'm not particularly good at describing the natural beauty, so I'll just share some photos from the trip.
This will probably be the end of my first post in my "Irish Diaries". In fact, there are lots of things I hope to write about in future posts, ranging from a heavy Irish accent to the details of studying at an Irish university.