Ireland II

I am doing my exchange semester in Dublin the capital of Ireland. I have been in Dublin for more than a month now. During this time, I was able to observe many new things about Irish culture and campus life that I hadn’t thought about before.

Luckily, I got a room on Campus close to my classes. A flat for four persons with single bedroom, two shared bathrooms and a kitchen/ living room.  My flatmates are from Ireland and one from Austria which give me the opportunity to get in touch with Irish culture and families. We had also a lot of help to get adjusted to the new situation by the global lounge, who organized a lot of introduction presentations from different sections all around campus. This helped a lot with the living and academic integration. But there were also a lot of social events organized by different society’s. In the following weeks we could sign up for those societies and clubs, which helped me to get in touch with students from other subjects (politics, agriculture, law, nursing…). There are also Irish cultural habits that appeared strange to me from the beginning, and some of them probably will stay strange to me. The biggest cliché about Irish people always going to the Pub is true and a tradition. A Pub isn’t only a bar which you visit to drink beer. It is a place to meet friends and family to watch sport games, listen and dance to Irish music and to have craic with pint of Guinness. People use Pubs the whole day and for everything. For example, we have to prepare our site walk for my class and met the tutors in a pub to discuss the topics.

These are the places where friendship are formed and memories are made. And no matter where you go on the island of Ireland, that sense of hospitality never falters.  Another cultural practice that I find striking is their reaction to rain. It is quite common that the weather in Ireland changes really fast and the sun may shine in one minute while in the next minute it’s pouring down. Usually it is pretty easy to find out who are the Irish and who are the non Irish-people. Most of the time, Irish show no reaction to the rain and just continue to do their shopping on the market, bike along the street or walk home with no care in the world for the weather while foreigners immediately start to take out their raincoat or search for a shelter. Probably this is because it usually never rains for a long time and the natives think it’s not worth to let yourself interrupted by the rain. It is very difficult to be in a situation you have never been confronted with before and definitely changed my view on such cultural differences and how I approach them. The biggest challenge for me wasn’t really the familiarization of unfamiliar habits but more to avoid habits that are normal for me but are totally inappropriate in Ireland. These situations also made me realize that you cannot go to another country, if it isn’t far away, and just expecting a smooth transition. There might be a surprisingly big number of things that are handled the same but more often than not there are going to be situations where you faced with something unfamiliar that you have to deal with. But with the right mindset and expectations there is no concern that you can not adapt to unfamiliar habits.

In conclusion I can say that this is a new experience on all levels. Even though it can be challenging at times, it is rewarding, and I am enjoying my exchange semester in Ireland, Dublin.

Natalie Lampert