Hey guys,

finally I have the last pics of the Edingburgh trip...  you can find more on
www.marine-in-dublin.myevs.net/ it's the blog of the french volunteer, who was in my project.

And well next weekend I will go to an EVS-Pre-departure-training, curious to get to know the volunteers and their projects!

See ya

Well …didn’t write for a while now! And there happened a lot.

Paddys Day in Dublin- always nice and always the same: Parade, Irish Music Open Air Concert, Drinking and going to Pubs – quite enjoyable;-) on the Sunday after Paddys Day a EVS-group took part in the treasure hunt and so I discovered some places I’ve never seen before- thought I wouldn’t be interested in them, but surprisingly there really nice.

And I had (as all the other volunteers) the obligatory visit of my mum.

One week sightseeing… museums, seaside, Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough (the Valley of the 2 lakes), pub with live music, restaurants and cafes. We were so exhausted every night- incredible exhausted! Than I brought my mum to the airport at 4 O’clock in the morning, thanks to the companies, that they decided that there are no later flights than 6 am. I went straight to work to enjoy the Youth Arts Festival, which just started and I helped out with a animation workshop, African drumming, juggling, sound recording and visual arts. What a nice start to work again! But my next trip was waiting! The easter weekend in Edinburgh and – WOW the city blow me away! We arrived in the evening and all the castles and churches were illuminated! Just gorgeous. After a sleepless night in the hostel, thanks to the noisy and crazy girls from Australia, we started to explore the city and were amazed. The houses were built stepwise over each other. Sometimes a Church was on top of a house and you could reach the top on stairs!

Impressive, but after a while I recognized that it is as well kind of boring. The city is not the biggest and beside the parks there are less plants, and the colour of the houses are all the same.

Anyway we all came to the solution that Edinburgh is worth to go there and the Scottish people are way more behaved than the irish. Fortunately I found something new to eat there: Flap Jack, it is a kind of cereal (oat) bar with different kind of flavours and chocolate or yoghurt topping…yummy! Now I started already a collection: Almond-raspberry jam – yoghurt, Brazil nut- chocolate and coco’s-banana. But well I have to eat them all soon, because they are quite heavy and I have to reduce my belongings now, because my flight back is booked! It will be the 14.5. and as I mentioned there are no flight in evening or during the day, so it will be a flight in the early morning. Looking forward;-) Especially because I’m not used to get up early anymore… I normally start to go to work at 11or 12!

I had another visitor as well, one of my Erasmus-friends was here for my birthday!

Juhu, unfortunately I hadn’t much time for her, but I think she enjoyed it anyway.

We went out almost every eve and I had a nice Birthday Party last Friday. The people had difficulties to find my house, but some could manage and I enjoyed to meet all of them again, because it was now a while ago since I saw most of them, due to my visitors and theirs holidays and trips and so on.

Surprisingly we have since 2 weeks brilliant sunny weather, so we spend all the weekend outside of Dublin near the seaside, fooling around, chilling, juggling, playing games.

I think, I will miss the seaside a lot!

During the Easter Holidays we offered juggling workshops for 4 days and the kids were crazy about it, sometimes they went crazy as well…  but we should have been more strict in the first place. So for the next juggling club, we will take this in account!

But anyway the workshops helped that some of the kids get to know us better and I recognize that they appreciate it and are happy when I’m working with them in other clubs now.

One of the juggling girls asked me if I’m from Belfast. What’s the story? I wonder with country they suggest me next! First Australia now Northern Ireland. Funny, funny!

So Berlin watch out! I’m coming back soon…

I’m so glad! After 1 month my bike is now finally fixed and I can start to cruise again through Dublin! And I survived my illness... I fought against a miserable throat during 2 weeks, what really bothered me, because I always had to interrupt my conversations because I coughed.

Anyway... since 2 weeks we have a new volunteer from Slovenia. And Marine and I had the wonderful task to welcome her – becuase my mentor was on Holiday. So we created a wonderfull “welcome poster”, we wrote welcome in every language we knew and especially searched in the web for the slovenian word. At the Airport all the people smiled at us- or we smiled at the people? We hadn’t a clue, how Irena would look like, so we just smiled at everyone. And decided who she could be by statements like: No to old, to less lugage, male ... was quite fun. When she finally arrived she started to laugh, because the last thing she expected was a poster in slovenian! Suprise, suprise, we are f... marvellousJ

No really! To be honest: Marine and I are working good together! Great teamwork. Our jugglinggroup is growing and I just enjoy the company of this french girl- at work and afterwards!

Once we had a conversation about the English language and she just said “ H is not a letter for me!” I laught a lot! She is so French…

Another experience: The day after Irena arrived we should go overto her place and take her to the youth center.. but hey, the doorbell was brooken, so we ended up screaming “Irena” on the street with not a real chance to be heard! After a while- lucky we were- the landlady arrived for lunch, so we could enter! Well somehow we always manage!

Last weekend we went to Thomastown (near Kilkenny) to visit another Volunteer (Marieke from Belium). And even if I was still sick, I had a devine time! On Saturday we discovered Kilkenny, which is quiet and small, but with thousends of hidden little side streets and nice pubs! It is more an irish city than Dublin! Even on the busiest time in the week (Saturday afternoon) it was really relaxed to go around.  And on Sunday it was awfully raining, so we decided spontanious to cook a menue- Risotto and backed apples with crumbles and ice cream as an desert! 

And when we were finished the sun was shinning, so we risked a walk to an old abbey. Following the train tracks, we walked towards the chapel... and we believed our guide Marieke that it isn’t dangerous, because, there are no trains on Sundays!

Well a few meters before we were going to go over a brigde- where we couldn’t step away from the train tracks- one of the others screamed “ the train”! And really, I couldn’t believe it, because just one of us heard it and I never thought a train could be so quiet.... but indeed it was a train- a big long train! So I learnt: It is incredible dangerous to walk on train tracks!

No wonder that there are always accidents...

After this adventure another one was ahead! A hugh puddle was in front of us, and we had to go over to the other side- we were creative, everyone of us found his own way! Walking on the fenche, runing through it, climbing beside it on wobbely stones- I decided not to be a sissy, but still not for wet shoes... so I took them of and waded through the water and enjoyed that I could avoid to step into the sheep poo on the other side on the lawn. Nice weekend!

And yesterday we visited the Fair trade chocolate promotion… with chocolate fondue and other tasters. Mesmerizing!

BTW you can find pictures from my trips to Dun Laoghaire and Kilkenny on Marine’s Blog (marine-in-dublin)

And well the latest news about my bike:

The first day I drove my bike people throw stones at me out of a car...

and Yesterday, they tried to steal it and now the locker is broken and I couldn't open it, so my bike is at the moment again: "out of order":-(

So just a last thing: I have just 10 weeks left...

So just a last thing: I have just 10 weeks left...