Between Culture and Start of School

Thursday, 03.09.2020

The weekend is over and school has started again, which gives me some time to look back on the past few days.

Marco and I used the weekend to explore Sligo further. W.B. Yeats, the poet and writer, and his family are from this town here on the Atlantic coast, and Marco and I followed in their footsteps a little. There is a small exhibition about the writer and a gallery where his brother Jack's expressionist paintings are displayed. We looked at both to get a better understanding of the local culture and gather some interesting information about our new home.

After this little piece of culture, we followed the water again and watched the sunset. In the city, you can't really see it well because of the buildings and high-rise buildings, but it's still nice to see the sky turning pink and then dark.

To have experienced every type of water, we drove to the beach on Sunday. Carla, a friend of hers, Marco and I set off together for the Atlantic. The beaches are really quite easy to reach here. By bus or car, it takes about ten minutes, if at all.

There are many beaches around Sligo. The most famous ones are Strandhill and Rosses Point. We drove to the first mentioned beach. The weather was perfect for Irish conditions: 20 degrees, light sunshine, and no rain. It wasn't cloudy, and many locals took advantage of the situation and also went to the beach. On such days, it's quite difficult to find a parking space, so it's better to take public transportation.

Since many people had the same idea as we did, we turned our backs to the busier places and walked along the quieter stretch of beach.

It's really impressive, and this phenomenon has only happened to me in Ireland so far, and I'm already afraid that the memory will explode my phone, but I still have my camera for emergencies.

As you can maybe see here, the Irish landscape is the perfect motif for photos from almost every angle. I felt like a little hobbit or dwarf (which is not really difficult given my size) who is on a great journey. But at his height, Marco is an elf, and together we probably make up the duo of Gimli and Legolas.

And to make my heart beat even higher, there was an old chapel on the beach in ruins and an adjacent old cemetery. It looked like a horror or historical film, and you feel a bit like in a Jane Austen novel when you stand on top of the little hill and look down at the sea (Pride & Prejudice, highly recommended). However, we haven't met Mr. Darcy yet, but that was certainly not the last trip to Strandhill.

The beach stretches for kilometers, and there are many opportunities to walk endlessly. We met many people with dogs, and we even saw people swimming in this cold water. The water would be too cold for me personally, but maybe you're a little tougher if you live and grow up here.

After our little beach walk, we went into the adjacent forest and got a little lost there. Then it was: two Germans, one Chilean, and a local got lost. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it's not funny at all when it actually happens to you. In the end, we had to ask Google Maps, and the internet was so kind as to show us the shortest way back.

After our little beach day, September has now arrived, and that means the start of school in Ireland. Because of Covid-19, everything is starting slowly, and the girls are gradually moving into the boardinghouse. I don't have so much to do at school at the moment because the classes are smaller, and not so many people are allowed in a classroom. However, I already have a few tasks in the boardinghouse, and from now on it's all about putting the children to bed, taking away their phones overnight, and bringing everyone to meals. It's a whole new experience, but I'm looking forward to when the routine sets in and helping at school also starts properly.

The work schedule is set until the autumn holidays, I'm still fascinated every time by the landscape, and plans for further travel are already being made.