Hello from Galway, Ireland!
April here has been focused on our finals since classes ended April 1st. One of the cool things about our classes here in Ireland is that you have a lot of time to prepare for finals after classes end, and for my classes specifically, I only have essay finals. Between writing our final papers we have been able to adventure more around Ireland in the last few weeks. We were able to start off the month with a beautiful hike pretty close to home. We went to Rosscahill woods about a 30-minute bus ride away from us.
The woods themselves were beautiful and we had a wonderful time exploring the forest full of mossy trees, cool rocks, butterflies, and amazing flowers.
Since it was a pretty secluded location, we ended up waiting for the bus back for hours in what felt like the middle of nowhere, but overall, it was still a beautiful hike that was worth the bus wait.
One of the cool things about studying abroad is that you get to volunteer in your new community. My roommates and I have been on the hunt for volunteering opportunities in Galway, and this month we were able to volunteer at two different places. At the first volunteering opportunity we helped to build a raft for terns in order for them to be studied on their migration paths.
The raft building was from a local conservation group, and it was wonderful to see the group gather to volunteer to help their environment. For our second volunteering opportunity this month Haley, Zell, and I signed up to help with the Cuirt International Festival of Literature here in Galway. The week of the festival we all had different time slots to help at a variety of really interesting events. I helped out venues holding chats with authors, poetry readings, meet and greats, and more.
We also helped to pass out flyers and spread the word about the festival to the people of Galway. This experience has been one of my favorite ways that I have been involved in Galway because it was such a fun week getting to come together with people who were passionate about literature and the arts to make something beautiful happen.
I met so many amazing people who were also volunteering for the festival and made lots of connections to people in the community. The coordinators of the festival also made sure that the volunteers got discounts at local places, free access to the events they were not helping with, and even hosted celebrations every night at a bar to say thanks for all the hard work.
I had a blast getting involved in the community more this month, and I can’t believe we are almost done with school now.
Best,
Isabel Brown