Living in a Fairy Tale - Living in Northern Ireland
A semester abroad – in my case staying in Northern Ireland for a bit longer than four months – does not seem to be a very long time on first glance. And indeed, my time there went by very quickly. However, considering all the impressions that remain and all the experience I gained, it could just as easily have been a whole year. Before I spent my semester abroad in Northern Ireland, I had never set foot on the island. Yet through the pictures of and films about Ireland I had seen, I had a clear image in my head how it should look like: magnificent untouched coast lines, green fields as far as the eye can see and colorful rainbows shining above the island like a halo above a saint. Of course, I knew that this was only a stereotypical view of Ireland, which made me almost doubt my senses when I got my first clear view of the island through the plane's windows. Through the windows on the left, I saw nothing but green, and, through the window on my right, I saw a rugged coast line and above it a rainbow. From that moment, I had fallen under Ireland's spell.
Yes, you have guessed correctly, I love the great outdoors. But that is not the only thing that makes living and studying in Northern Ireland worthwhile because the people I have met there are just as wonderful. Again, the first impression was a remarkably good one and one that would not change a bit. When we (I travelled with three other students from my home university) arrived at the house we would call home for the next few months, the landlady and her husband, a sweet elderly couple, received us with open arms. Rather than going straight to business and collecting our deposits, they first made us a nice cup of Irish tea and talked with us about ourselves, our home and our first impressions of the country. What is more, even though they knew that we would arrive when the shops would still be open for quite some time, they had bought groceries for all of us so that we could spend our first day relaxing at the beach instead of shopping at Tesco’s.
As it would defeat the purpose of this article if I were to simply go on and on about how magnificent Northern Ireland is, I will dial the appraisal down a bit. Instead, I want to try and write down the most important things that could be of use to future exchange students.
Let's start one step before the actual stay abroad because there is quite a lot to do beforehand. For a start, you should make up your mind about your future accommodation: Like everywhere else, there are numerous possibilities where you can stay during your semester abroad. It seems the easiest to use the residencies provided by the university. Personally however, I would not recommend to stay there, but I want to mention these possibilities for the sake of completeness. There are two different kinds of residencies offered by the university: on-campus and off-campus. Since I have seen the on-campus buildings only from the outside, I cannot give much information about them other than the fact that they, like the name already says, are located on campus and, therefore, are very close to the university buildings. There are two kinds of off-campus residencies (that I know of). One building complex is located even closer to most of the university buildings than the on-campus residencies, and the other complex is situated on the outskirts of the small seaside town Portstewart, which lies about three miles away from the university. The only off-campus residence I have seen was the one close to university, in which several students share a kitchen and a bathroom. The reason why I would not recommend the university residencies is the comparatively high rent. You would have to pay about 60-70£ per week, and you also would have to pay the rent for your whole stay up front. Moreover,
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