Author: aflood

Sadly, the time has finally come for me to head back to the U.S. I am so sad to be leaving Galway, my friends, and overall this amazing experience. Once I finish my finals, my family will be joining me here in Ireland for the holidays, and then I will be going back home. 

Throughout these last few weeks here, I have spent my time being so thankful for all of the wonderful memories I have made. I have loved meeting so many new friends, living with strangers who have become some of my favorite people, and exploring Europe. I know that I will be happy to be home and settled back into a routine, but I am going to miss Galway so much. There truly is nothing comparable to the time I have had studying abroad here, and am so grateful I got to do it. 

2 weeks later…

Finally, I am back at home in Oregon. Just as predicted, so sad to be done with my study abroad, but still reminiscing on all of the good times. I finished up my finals and said my good byes to all of my new friends. It was so hard to leave all of them, especially those who live all the way across the world. Two of my best friends that I have made are from Australia, and I don’t know when the next time I will see them will be. Even though it might be a while until I see all of my friends again, I know we will keep in touch and keep each other updated about our lives. 

After we finished finals, my family came to Ireland and we explored the country before heading home. We visited King Johns Castle in Limerick, as well as spent Christmas in Killarney. We did the Ring of Kerry, Blarney Castle, visited the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, and stayed in Northern Ireland. 

 

And now, I am back home, waiting to start my final semester at Linfield. It’s so bitter sweet to be done with this experience, and I can only be thankful that I had the opportunity to do so. I am thankful for all of the help from IPO, and their constant support and availability. They made me feel safe and supported, even from across the world. If anyone is thinking about doing a study abroad, I highly encourage it. Like I’ve said, it was one of the best experiences of my life, and you won’t regret the memories you will make. 

I hope to visit Ireland again soon, because I will forever be connected to Ireland and Galway. 

Thanks for following along!

Best,
Annie 

The last two weeks here were full of preparing for finals, traveling, and seeing family! My aunt, uncle, and grandparents came to visit for the weekend and it was so nice to see family, and show them around Galway!

We spent a day at the Cliffs of Moher, as well as a couple of days in town, walking around the Christmas markets. 

Seeing them made me both excited to go home and see the rest of my family, but also so sad to leave! I only have about three weeks left until I head home, so I am making the most of these last few weeks.

After my family visited,  three of my friends and I took our last group trip, going to Amsterdam! We spent our time there walking the canals, and even took a boat tour of the canals one day. We also watched the new Gladiator 2 movie, visited museums, and my favorite part – ice skating! 

I loved Amsterdam and being able to see another country, while we had the ability to travel so easily here in Ireland. 

We have finals coming up soon, and after that, the rest of my family will be joining to visit Ireland before we head home! I can’t believe my time has almost come to an end, but I will make the most of the last couple of weeks! 

Annie

Happy Thanksgiving! 

This past week was Thanksgiving, and I wasn’t sure how that would look here in Ireland! 

One of my American friends and I got together and thought it would be fun to cook Thanksgiving dinner for everyone.

We have made a bunch of friends from outside the U.S., and mainly Ireland, so we hosted a Thanksgiving for them!

We couldn’t find turkey, so we cooked chicken instead.  But other than that, we had all of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. We made mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing (I made it from scratch for the first time!), and a lot more! It was so fun to be able to cook for our friends and show them how we would celebrate Thanksgiving back home!

After we ate, we had dessert and played lots of games!

Such a fun Thanksgiving in Ireland! 

Annie 

This weekend I took a trip to Portugal! This was my first time in Portugal, and a friend and I were looking for a place to go for the weekend, that would be different than some of the other European countries we were planning to visit.

We arrived in Faro on Thursday, and spent the day relaxing at the beach! It was about 70 degrees, which was a much-needed difference from the current Irish weather (although it hasn’t been too bad here, not too much rain!).

We stayed at the most amazing hostel in downtown Faro, Hostelicious, and had the BEST time there. It was so beautiful, and my friend and I were able to have a room for just the two of us. The hotel was so helpful with recommendations. It was clean and located in a great spot. 

We spent the whole first day lounging on the beach and reading, which is my ideal perfect day. We also walked along the beach and visited some of the local restaurants along the ocean side. That night, we ate at a local sushi restaurant and had an amazing meal, for much cheaper than you would find at home! To finish that night, we had to visit an Irish pub down the street from our hostel to see how it compared to the ones in Galway. It was a fun experience to see how other European countries bring Irish culture into their towns!

The next day, we shopped in the local markets and found beautiful hand- crafted goods. I bought a few pieces of jewelry, and some other items. After our shopping, we took a speed boat to an island off the coast, called Isla Deserta, where we swam in the ocean, read some more, and hung out for the day.

This was one of my favorite parts of the weekend, because we truly were so relaxed the whole day. We finished our last night trying authentic Portuguese tapas for dinner, including mackerel, açorda (a Portuguese fish and bread mixture), zucchini, and pork dishes. It was really cool to be able to have an authentic Portuguese dinner, and experience something new! 

We had to leave on Saturday morning, but we both would have loved to stay longer.  It was one of my favorite places that I’ve visited and I would love to return! 

Annie

This week was Halloween! I was really excited to see how Ireland celebrates Halloween because it is one of my favorite holidays. I had heard that Galway has a really fun Halloween, and that everyone dressed up and celebrated together. A lot of people ended up going to Dublin for Halloween events, but my friends and I wanted to stay in Galway to see how they celebrate. 

Throughout the week leading up to Halloween, there were tons of events and costume parties throughout the city, including a Halloween parade on the Sunday before. 

We saw Alf the Newt, which was a large Halloween float that moved around the city on Sunday night. 

On Halloween night, my friends and I dressed as the Men in Black, and went out into town. There was a lot going on – each pub was packed, and there were hundreds of people dressed up.

I mainly just enjoyed walking around, looking at everyone’s costumes and listening to live music throughout the night!

Overall, I would say Halloween is pretty similar to how it is celebrated in the U.S. The main difference for me, is that Galway has such a small community feel to it, so a lot of the celebrations felt more exciting and larger because so many people were participating in the same events. 

This week we also had the Galway Races, which was on the Bank Holiday in Ireland. It was student day at the races so everyone dressed up and went to watch the horse races in Galway! It was a beautiful day, and overall, a fun way for my friends and I to be able to get together and dress up!

Annie

The last few weeks here have been full of traveling and meeting new people!

My friends and I went to Dublin over a weekend and stayed in a hostel for a night. We took the train and bus to get there and back, and overall the trip was really easy and so fun!

We explored Dublin, saw the nightlife, shopped around, and tried lots of food. 

I bought a nice leather jacket for winter, had the best fish and chips, had a Taylor Swift-themed drink, and saw the New York to Dublin portal!

The next weekend, we took a trip to Paris! Paris is one of my favorite cities, and it is so much easier and cheaper to travel while living in Europe, so I had to visit! 

We spent the weekend there, and had the best time! While we did all the touristy stuff, we also spent a lot of time walking around, sitting by the Eiffel Tower, tasting amazing food, and exploring. 

My favorite part was probably sitting under the Eiffel Tower eating a baguette and cheese while reading my new Jane Austen that I bought at the Shakespeare bookstore. 

We finished the weekend in Paris at my favorite restaurant, having steak frites and getting all of my friends to try escargot! 

Overall, 10/10 trip to Paris!

I am looking forward to many more weekend trips, and also fun weekends here in Galway!!

Best,
Annie 

Hi!

It’s been about three weeks of living in Ireland! We just finished our first few weeks of classes, and I have started to feel like I am learning my way around town!

When we arrived, we started with orientation, where we learned about the resources the school had for us, how to register for classes, and we learned about all of the different clubs and societies that are active on campus. After orientation, we had a couple of days before we registered for our classes, to decide what would be a good fit for each of us. I am registered, and have taken three marketing courses, and an Irish studies course! 

As a senior marketing major back home, it was important for me to still be able to find some courses that I could use for credits and electives back home, so I am taking the equivalent of 2 marketing electives at Linfield, while I am here in Ireland! They had quite the range of business and marketing courses, so I landed on Cases in Marketing Strategy, Customer Experience and Design, and Media and Marketing Communications. All three of these classes mainly consist of international students, and each lecture is huge! There are about 100 students in each (which is big for me), and each lecture is usually once a week, for 2 hours. I am also taking Festivals, Rituals, and Commemoration, which is an Irish Studies course. All together, these are 20 ECTS which is the University of Galway’s version of credits, and that translates to 12 Linfield credits. 

In my few weeks of courses, I have been able to meet a lot of other students, and learn a lot about the Irish school systems. So far, it is pretty similar to the U.S., more specifically Linfield, but there are a few differences, like course length, they only meet once a week typically, and they typically just have one big exam at the end of the semester. 

Outside of classes, I have met a lot of really fun people as well! Two girls from Australia and I have been exploring the city, the campus, the pubs, and figuring out our way around town. There is a lot of walking here, which is slightly difficult for me as someone with a prosthetic leg, but I am figuring out what works best for me, and learning and adapting! 

 

For the most part, everything is around 20-25 minutes away by walk. My walk from campus takes me 20 minutes depending on the route I take and the walk into town is about 25 minutes. The nice thing is that the walk from my apartment to the grocery store is only about 10 minutes, so much quicker than walking into town. 

We’ve started to explore the town, and find fun pubs (most pubs here are really fun and interesting) and restaurants that I liked! I found one cafe that I am obsessed with called the Jungle Cafe, where I have already gone to 4 times. This week, I went to a silent disco with some friends and luckily they played a lot of Taylor Swift, which really made me feel at home. We also have gone to the student bar on campus, which was very fun! 

I am hoping to take a trip into Dublin, or somewhere else around Ireland soon, but for now, I am making my way around Galway!

TTYL,

Annie

Hello! I am Annie Flood, a senior at Linfield University studying marketing and journalism and media studies. This is the first post of many that I will be making about my semester abroad in Galway, Ireland. Before making the decision to study abroad, and even after I had already made the decision, applied and had been accepted, I had so many questions. I wont be able to answer all of my questions yet, because I have only been in Ireland for a few days, but I will be walking through what getting prepared for a semester abroad looks like!

For starters, making the decision that I wanted to apply for a study abroad program was a very difficult decision to make. I was nervous about being away from family and friends, campus, and taking a new version of classes. However, I knew it would be an experience I would most likely not get again, so I talked with family, professors, advisors, and students who had previously studied abroad, and ultimately, made the decision to apply. I then had to decide what program I wanted to apply for. Because I wasn’t a language major, or going for a certain program, I had some of my options narrowed down for me, but needed to learn more about each, and after doing my research, watching a TON of YouTube videos on each country, and talking with family, I landed on Galway! I was drawn to this program by the familiar, homey environment that I had heard so much about, and knew I would have an amazing time. 

Once I had settled on Ireland, I completed the application process and waited until I had heard back from the International Programs Office (IPO). The wait had further confirmed for me that I wanted to study abroad, because I was so excited and nervous to hear back. And finally, I had received my acceptance letter from IPO and was going to get to study abroad in Galway! 

From here on out, I started planning, packing and asking questions. Some of my main questions being, how long is the program? When do classes start? How many classes will I take? What will my living situation look like? And shortly after being accepted, I was able to gain more information and answer many of my questions! 

These are all questions that I will be able to answer in the near future, for both myself, and future Wildcats studying abroad. 

One question I almost immediately (shamefully) had, was how could I possibly pack for 4 months?! With a lot of strategery, sad goodbyes to some of my favorite outfits, and packing cubes, I completed the potentially most impressive game of Tetris ever. With two checked bags, a carryon, and a personal item, I fit 4 months worth of clothes, reminders of home, toiletries, and much, much more. Although the actual packing was one of the last things I did before I left, I created the most detailed packing plan, that I knew would set me up for success. 

Once I had locked down my packing plan, I was set to focus on less important things, like my passport. Just kidding, that was definitely the first thing checked off of my list, due to my own anxiety over the potential of not having a passport, and IPO’s impeccable organization. Truthfully, IPO was on top of everything “stressful” from passport help, to detailed packing lists, I was set with constant help and support from IPO. 

Because I am studying abroad in the fall of 2024, I was put in a unique position, I needed to register as an absentee voter in the presidential election for 2024. Luckily, the process was pretty simple, through websites like vote.org, and many others who had resources for situations like mine, to ensure our right to vote was still exercised even while abroad. 

Another pre departure question I had was about my phone plan, and while I am still sort of in the process of figuring it out, I have many more answers now than I did at the beginning of the summer. First, AT&T is my phone provider, so I learned I needed to payoff my phone to “unlock my SIM card.” Without this step, I would not be able to use an international SIM card, and my phone would be shut off after a couple of months. (I do not think this is the case for most providers luckily). So, I paid off my phone, which cost me roughly a couple hundred bucks, and then I can purchase an international SIM card here in Ireland. I am still doing research on which is the best for a 4 month stay, and will report back at a later date with all the deets.

With my phone figured out, I had a few more tasks to complete before I could call myself fully ready. Here’s a quick speed-through of some other tasks that turned out to be pretty easy work, but important to do before departure and with plenty of time in advance. 

1. Dental check (just to make sure nothing is needed to be done before departure)
2. For me, I wear contacts so I needed to get enough to last me my entire duration
3. Contact credit card company & let them know you’ll be out of the country
4. Necessary vaccinations
5. Order a couple things on amazon (sheets/ pillow (University of Galway housing asks you to bring your own), packing cubes, adapters, anti-theft money pouch, and anything else I may need)
6. Get cash to exchange for Euros. I am still not sure what the best way to do this is, but I have both cash and cards for exchanging USD to get some Euro cash. 

With all of these tasks checked off my list, I was able to focus on spending my last few weeks with my family and friends, and cherishing every moment before I took off on my unforgettable journey! 

I am looking forward to writing more, answering all of the questions I had prior to leaving, during, and after, and sharing my journey with you al!

Talk soon!
Annie