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Dia dhuit, from Galway!
Galway is the city I have most looked forward to visiting. Galway wasn't as anglicized as other parts of Ireland. The land was not hospitable for farming so the British concentrated their interests in the East. We arrived in Galway around 1:00 pm.
Anyways, let's talk about Day 3 first.
Day 3
Last night in Dublin and what a fun, busy, busy day it was!
We began our day by visiting a secondary school in Dundrum, a neighborhood of Dublin. St. Tiernan's School. It has children from ages 10-18. There is no middle school or junior high in the Irish education system. It is interesting learning about the way they do examinations/high school diploma. The way they get into college is much more selective and difficult. The eldest students were studying for their leaving certificate. The amount of points they score determines what profession they can go into.
Then our class split into two groups and we visited two different primary schools. I went to a school called "Guardian Angels School." In Ireland, there is no seperation between church and state in the schools. Publicly funded schools have religion classes everyday,
Anglican or Catholic. I was able to do a little bit of teaching. I went into a "learning support classroom" which would be the equivalent of a resource room in the states. There was a girl named Maia, age 7, who had hearing difficulties and a boy named Michael, age 13, who had Downs syndrome. I was partnered with my classmate, Richard. He read them a poem about Ohio and I taught them a song and read them a book about the Great Lakes. Michael was awesome because he was interested in showing me his Yo-Gi-Oh! cards and he has a special friend named Cosmo. It's his hand.
After this visit, we were pretty tired and didn't really have a lunch break. (I packed a sandwich I made at breakfast.) We then went to Blackrock Education Center, which is a professional development center for teachers. The lecture was brief. I was nodding off in it.
After our visit, we came back to the hotel and I slept for a bit. The evening plans were to eat a restaurant downtown and see a musical at the Olympia Theatre. I had a traditonal fish and chips meal which was amazing.
I've been eating a lot of salmon as well. For dessert, we were served apple pie, which had a delicous crust, unlike ours, with custard.
We saw the musical, Michael Collins, at the Olympia Theatre. The plot of the musical was wonderful. It was based on the revolutionary leader of the Irish Free State, Michael Collins. However, it was too loud and the singers were not very good. My professor disliked it. Interestingly, in my program, it notes that the musical was commissioned in 2004 and is still a works in progress.
After the musical, we went off looking for a pub on Temple Bar and we ran into a fellow from Pittsburgh that a few of the girls met two nights before. He and his friends invited us to the Turk's Head. It was a fun last night in Dublin.
Day 4
Today, we woke early and had to be on the mini-bus at 8:30 am to cross the Mid-Lands of Ireland. I slept most of the way. We arrived in Galway by 1:00 pm and had time to eat lunch and explore a bit before we had a lecture.
The lecturer was from
the University of Ireland, Galway and spoke on the Irish Language, Gaelic. He also made me very sleepy.
As tempted as I was to take a nap, I went out with a few girlfriends for a bit of shopping. The shopping in Galway is more Irish. In Dublin, there were a lot of fashion stores from the UK.
We then had dinner at the hotel and I had delicious roast beef and a dessert that I do not remember the name of. After dinner, we had a discussion with our professor regarding the questions that we have been asking the Irish. I will write about the Irish people later.
Tomorrow we're visiting two schools. We have a free day on Friday, so it will be a late night and we can sleep in. We're going to the Aran Islands on Friday.
Slan,
Kristen
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