Our Dublin Trip 2018

From the 25th of June until the 1st of July a group of 33 students from the 7th class participated in a language and cultural trip to Dublin. The trip aimed to improve our English by having us attend an English language course as well as staying with host families in Dublin. We also had plenty of time to take in the sights around Dublin, visiting places such as Howth, Guinness Brewery, Christ Church Cathedral and much more. This was BORG Egg’s first trip to Dublin and I believe that the trip was an overall success, the perfect weather we had during that week certainly helped.

Our trip began on Monday afternoon with a short flight from Memmingen to Dublin, where we were then taken to our host families’ homes to settle in there. On Tuesday our English lessons, with CES (Centre for English Studies) began, which we had on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. Here we were given a test to determine our level of English and were put in groups accordingly. In these groups we practised our English by having discussions with our teacher and the class. 

On Tuesday afternoon we were given a tour of the Dublin City Centre by CES, which helped to get our bearings about where everything was. On our tour we were shown famous landmarks in Dublin, such as Temple Bar, the Ha´Penny Bridge, Henry Street and the Spire of Dublin. After our tour we went and visited the replica of the Jeanie Johnston, a ship used in the 1800’s for bringing people to Canada and America. This was quite an interesting way to learn a little about the history of emigration in Ireland and what life was like for people living on these ships. After this we had the rest of our evening free to our disposal. 

Our next trip together was on Wednesday afternoon when we went out to Howth, a little seaside village on the outskirts of Dublin. Here we had some time to walk around the docks before meeting again to go and do a cliff walk. I think everyone was quite excited to be spending some time at the Irish Sea. On Thursday, after our last English lesson we did a bit of sightseeing within Dublin, heading first to look at the historic Dublin Castle.

After that was the Christ Church Cathedral, where an orchestra from America were performing a small concert, which was quite an amazing thing to watch in such a beautiful Church. Our last stop for that afternoon was the Guinness Brewery, where we were able to explore six stories telling us how Guinness beer is produced as well as the history of the company.

Since we had no English lessons on Friday morning, we instead split off into two groups, with one group going to visit the Archaeology Museum, the Museum of Natural History and St. Stephens Green, while the other group visited the National Art Gallery and Museum of Modern Art. After this we had the opportunity to go off on our own and explore the city by ourselves, or head out to the beach as some people did. Saturday, our last day in Ireland.

On this day we were taken on trip by CES to the Powerscourt Estate, where we were able to explore the huge and lavish gardens. We were also taken to the Glendalough national park, in which we spent the time splashing around in the lake. The mix of mountains, lake and forest here made it such a beautiful little part of Ireland. On Sunday we had to say goodbye to Ireland and were taken to the airport bright and early for our flight back to Memmingen.

Our trip to Ireland will certainly be a highlight of my year, I had such a great time there, as I’m sure everybody did. What an incredible way to finish the school year at BORG Egg! (Rachel McColl - Austauschschülerin aus Neuseeland am Borg Egg von Jänner 2018 bis Dezember  2018)