New Hostfamily & Midterm Break

I know I haven't been blogging for a long time now, and I'm really sorry about that - but the last weeks have been so busy!

Luckily, I'm absolutely happy with my new host family. They are so nice and funny, and even though I was a bit sad in the beginning because I had to find a new routine and everything, I settled in very quick. The whole family is so welcoming and open-minded, and I love sitting together with them in the kitchen, just to drink a cup of tea and have a talk.

Next to the fact that I got a new place to live for the next three months, I also had Midterm-Break last week, which is quite similiar to the holidays we have in Austria in February. There were pretty much things to do: Aoibhe, one of my closest friends here at school, invited me to her sleepover! My other Austrian friend and two other Irish friends were also there, and it was so much fun. And I also made the experience, that sleepovers in Ireland don't really differ from sleepovers in Austria: Eating lots of absolutely delicious & unhealthy stuff, watching movies and YouTube Videos and just chatting about everything. I had such a great feeling of  belonging  this day, and was very happy about my new friends. And on the next day, which was Pancake Tuesday - guess what we had for breakfast? It's actually a very cool tadition, but I'd never heard of that before. Maybe because on the same day, we're very busy with "Fasching" in Austria, which you can compare to Carneval.

I also did lots of trips during Mitdterm-Break: Bray, Howth, Killiney, Dalkey and Malahide - just along the coast. I went with two Austrian friends, and it was always the same: We went by Dart (which I can highly recommend - the journey itself is fascinating!), got out at a place that sounded good and then looked for a hill or something to climb on. We wanted to make the most of our time here, and I think it's great to get out of the Citycenter to see more of the environment around it. Even though the weather wasn't always perfect - when we went on the top of the Howth Cliffs, it started storming and raining heavily - it was one of the best experiences I had here. In Austria I never loved hiking or things like that, but being that close to our nature can be actually amazing.