The beginning of Guinness, leprechauns, and the search for the treasure at the end of the rainbow ... but first: 14 days of isolation

Sunday, 23.08.2020

My first entry and I'm not sure how to start. I'm sitting in my room listening to the new Taylor Swift album, while I alternately stare outside at the rain and hear the clicking sound of my laptop keyboard.

It's already quarantine day 11, but somehow I only now decided to start this blog. It still feels unreal to sit here in the vacation apartment and realize that I'm no longer in Germany, but 1115 km away in Ireland.

But let's start at the beginning.

My little adventure began on 13.08.2020 at the airport in Frankfurt. It was clearly too hot under my mask for a rainy day, and I had a queasy feeling when I had to leave my family in front of the security check. I have traveled alone before and I'm not really homesick, but we have never been separated for almost a whole year. However, I tried to push away that feeling at the airport, said goodbye, and finally left, alone, armed only with my passport and my music.

This was my view from the window when my plane finally took off after a one-hour delay. I love the feeling of flying. At first, it feels a bit like a roller coaster ride. The stomach gets butterflies, you can't take your eyes off the window, and unconsciously you press yourself a little into your seat to not lose the feeling of security. Perhaps the roller coaster ride could also be seen as a metaphor for my upcoming year abroad: a constant up and down, but while riding, you can't think of anything else.

At 11:30 local time, I suddenly found myself in Dublin at the airport, trying to orient myself. Of course, it's not a culture shock when traveling to Ireland, after all, it's part of Europe, but it still feels like being thrown into a cold water basin. Suddenly, you have to speak English, the signs are also in Irish, and you have to drag a suitcase behind you, in which you practically have stored your whole life, limited to 23 kilos. It was already difficult enough to decide what I really need and what not, but when you have to drag the suitcase behind you while inhaling the mask too quickly, you would have wished to have left a few things at home. Nevertheless, I made it to the exit and when I left the terminal, the fresh wind blew against me and for the first time that day, I felt relieved.

I met my travel companion Marco at the airport (which took longer than expected. Thanks Google Maps) and together we started our second journey of the day: the bus ride to Sligo, our final destination.

It was as cold in the bus as in a refrigerator and neither of us understood a word the bus driver said, but it was a relief to finally sit down and just look out the window. When I sat in the coach, which reminded me a lot of the Irish version of the FlixBus, I leaned back, listened to the humming of the engine and Marco, and looked outside.

My first impression of Ireland: it is indescribably green here, not only in rural areas but also next to the highway, in the small villages, and in the city. It was like a little drive through the Shire as we traveled with the bus for about three and a half hours. My mobile phone camera captured everything: the sheep, the stone walls in the fields, the small shops with English charm, and the countless water, which appears here in all possible variations, whether river, lake, pond, or rain.

In the late afternoon, we arrived at our destination: Sligo, the 'Place of Shells' as it is translated from Irish (Thanks Wikipedia). Since it is located by the sea in Northwestern Ireland, you can hear countless seagulls here, which makes my heart beat faster as a native landlubber.

My phone has already grown tired of this photo motif, but while I look out of the window of the holiday apartment, where Marco and I are trapped for two weeks, I can't really see anything else. However, the rain and the evening clouds create a changeable picture, so my gaze is constantly drawn to the building opposite.

If you lean out of our sliding window in the living room (sounds more dangerous than it is), you can also see hills and mountains, which are covered with clouds and mist in the morning and evening hours, making it look like a fantasy novel. To that I can only say: Ireland, the land of myths, fairies, and elves. I have also read that some scenes of 'Game of Thrones' were filmed here in Ireland, which I can clearly understand, and fittingly, I am now reading the ninth book in this series.

When our quarantine is finally over, I can't wait to explore the landscape more closely.

Since we can't do much at the moment, apart from British trash TV and eating, there is not much to report at the moment. However, there were a few highlights during the quarantine: the Champions League quarter-final Bayern vs. Barcelona (I'm actually not a Bayern fan at all, but since it's international, I was still excited), a new song by BTS, movie nights with 'the perks of being a wallflower' and 'Darkest Hour', sleeping in and watching people who, unlike us, walk around outside and enjoy the weather.

From Thursday, 27.08.2020, we will be free again, and then the adventure Ireland finally begins.