My highlight of the language trip to Ennis, Ireland

My highlight of the Ireland trip was definitely the experience of teaching in an Irish school. As in our hostfamily, both parents were teachers, me and my classmate Peter got the opportunity to teach German for three hours and talk about Austria, ourselves and our school. We also learned something about the school system and how it works out in general for the young Irish students.

We gave lessons in three different classes in the CBS Ennistymon, which is a Secondary School for boys. After a 40-minute drive, we arrived in the school and got introduced to all the other teachers. It was a very surreal experience to wait in the teacher’s room for our first lesson. The students were really interested in our hobbies as we told them about diving, surfing or mountaineering. In the third lesson we got split up to talk to different classes and just a short time after this unique experience we ended up in a bus full of Spanish students back home.

Tom Bardeck, 4BH

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My highlight of the Ireland language trip was the Gaelic sports lesson at the language school. There we learned how to play Hurling and Gaelic football. I never thought that Hurling is such a rough game, where you also need a delicate feeling to balance the small Sliotar (it looks a lot like a baseball) on the Hurly. We watched a live Hurling game on TV at our host family’s house later that day and realised that this game is not as slow as in our training session, it is very fast. It was also very interesting to learn that professional players get paid no money for the Gaelic sports.

Susanne Müller, 4BH

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First of all I want to thank all the teachers and our host family for the great trip and accomodation. I had a really great time in Ireland it was a trip that I will always remember.

I would say that for me personally the surfing trip was the best fun. I have been surfing a few times before but never in Ireland. First of all the water is quite cold and it was windy but that wasn’t a problem. We split up in groups with our surfing teachers and went to the beach. The first 5-10 minutes we did some exercises in the dry. Well after practising for 5 minutes in the dry we literally got thrown into the cold water and went for it. Surfing in essence is quite simple and consist of four steps. First you have to paddle when a wave comes up behind you. The next step is getting on your knees after that you have to get up and last but not least surf the wave. Knowing that we all had our first tries and failed miserably. Just the first step knowing when to start paddling is hard and needs some time. After mastering that step the next hurdle awaits, getting up without slipping of the board or losing balance is easier said than done. Still after a few tries I figured it out and well then it was all a matter of having fun. Then after two hours of pure fun we went back to the surf shop. Most of the students looked like they were more dead than alive but still all I could see was people smiling. So in retrospect I would say that the surfing trip was very successful.

Simon Gruber, 4BH

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I personally enjoyed the cliffs of moher the most. It was really interesting and fun, because you could see the countryside of Ireland and the seaside which were both beautiful. On the one hand you could see the flat country of Ireland and with its green meadows. On the other we also got to the blue sea and the stunning high cliffs, where you could see the waves breaking on the rock. It was also a nice weather when we went there, so we had a beautiful view and also could spot the Aran Islands.

Thomas Kremser, 4BH