Cork

Hi guys,
first of all THANKS for all the mails I got from you. I got several mails in English, what encourages me to go on writing in English.
I heard that some of you tried to leave a comment, but weren't. It should work now.
First click on "Kommentare", choose "Anonym" as profile and write a comment. Of course, u can leave your name under ur message. I hope that you'll write a lot of comments and mails.
So, enjoy the next report!

Trip 2:
On my second trip I went to Cork, the second biggest city in Ireland. This trip was not organised by the Student Union. We were six guys, who went to Cork. On Saturday morning, we took a bus to Cork. After having arrived there, we went to Barnley Castle. Once again we were very lucky with the weather, not only that it didn't rain, even the sun was shining.

In the left picture you can see parts of the Barnley Castle with it's nice sourroundings and the little stream. The right picture shows me kissing the Barnley Stone, the most famous tourist attraction in the Castle. As you can see, I had to lie down to kiss the stone. It seemed were akward, but everybody does it.
After everyone of us has kissed the stone we enjoyed the park around the castle, which was also quite nice and had some special features like the "wishing stairs" and a little water fall as you can see in the next picture.

After having had some sandwiches in the parc, we went back to the city center of Cork. There, we had a nice walk through the city, enjoyed the atmosphere in the city and went to the "English Market", which you can see on the picture. It is actually a food market, but there are also a few other things to buy, but mainly every kind of food.



In the late afternoon, we decided to go to a pub and have a nice pint of Guiness, as we were walking through the city for quite a long time and all of us were a little bit tired. Whereas the others went home on this evening, I stayed over night in Cork. In the evening I just went to a Sportsbar, watch a football match and talked to some locals.

On the next day, I walked through some other parts of the city, went to the "Butter Museum" and went to some of the beautiful churches. In the picture on the left, you can see a chapel in one of the chruches. The picture on the right shows a typical Irish church, build with white stones.



Later on, I went to the University of Cork, which you can see on the picture underneath. The buildings of the University were quite impressive, although most of them were closed. I just relaxed a litte bit on a bench and read a book. By the way: I finally finished "The pillars of the earth";)


After having enjoyed the sun at the University I decided to go back to the city center, where I went to the town's hall and some other buildings, before I took the bus back to Limerick, where my trip ended.

So far for today, next report comes soon;)

Foste

Trips

Hi guys,
this post refers to the first trips I already made in the first few weeks:

Trip 1:
Already on the first Saturday (05/09/09) the Student Union organised a trip for the International students. We went to Lough Gur and visited a lot of ancient buildings, stone circles etc. We also walked a little bit around the lake and had some nice views over the lake and the scenery.

The picture on right shows the group of the International students. In the background you can see some of the stones from the "Stone Circle". The big one is supposed to weigh about 3 tons.


In this picture you can see me and the beautiful scenery with the lake, the green fields and the little hill on the right side.


In the evening we went to Bunratty Castle and had a medieaval meal in the castle. The atmosphere was really awesome. The meal was fantastic, and also the entertainment was quite amusing.



The castle from the outside.



delicious food at the mediaeval meal. We only had knives and spoons, no forks, but we were allowed to use our fingers;)


...kk that was the first trip. I try to hold the messages short, as I reckon you won't read them, when they are too long;)

Basic Informations

Hi guys,
as probably all of you(oh yeah, i even told Antonia and Betty before my flight;)) know, will I stay here in Ireland for the next months and study here.

I'm living at the "City Campus"(photo above), a student residential accomondation. Nearly all international students live here. But of course also a lot of Irish students. I don't know how many students live here, but I guess, all in all 500-600. I marked our appartment with a red rectangle. You can only see the kitchen window, the windows of our rooms are to the other side of the building. Every apartment has one kitchen/living room, 2 bath rooms and 4 rooms for the 4 residents. I live with 3 Irish fellows, as u can see in the picture underneath. (Barry, Ruthie, Sam & me)
They are really nice and I'm are really happy that I live with them and not with other german guys. In this way I'm forced to speak English and that's the reason why I'm here. Furthermore they can explain me everything. For example any words I don't know or anything about Ireland.
As you can see I already decorated our living room in the bavarian style.

And of course I'm not only hanging here around and relax, I'm also studying. The Mary. I College is about 10-15 minutes walk from our residential acommondation. The City Center is about as far as away as the College, but in the other direction.

At the Mary I. study about 46 international students. They come from all over the world and we really have a good time together. We were already on some trips on the weekends and enjoyed our time here.

So that's so far for the beginning. I'll give you some more info in the next days.

Thanks for all the e-mails I already got. I'm really happy to get some infos about what's going on back home. So your're all welcome to write me an e-mail or chat with me.

Hope everything's all right back home and u're all fine!

C u guys!

Foste


P.S.: Probably some of u wonder, why I'm writing this blog in English. I'm here to improve my English and speak and write English as much as possible. And for u guys it's not bad either. So let's take this chance. ;)