Well here we are back again in La Courneuve after our rather exciting and highly emotional trip to sunny Ireland. No, I am not being sarcastic, it was rather sunny all week even if it did rain one night and a bit on Thursday morning. The worst weather we had was when we arrived back in France and all the way through Normandy it was pouring down, raining cats and dogs, bucketing!
After a very bad start at the customs we tried to keep our chins up.
As you can see on the left where the upper sixth girls are
passing the time away on the ferry dancing in th
e boat's discotheque, opened specially for the five school groups on board.
The crossing itself went fairly well for most people, only four of our group suffered from sea sickness.
Our first visit on Sunday was of the Irish National Heritage Park,
not far from Wexford. Paul, our Viking guide spoke very quickly and was in a hurry all the time so he was a bit difficult to understand . He was our first real experience of an Irish acc
ent too since the crew on the ferry were mostly from eastern Europe.
Any way the site was pleasant enough and the history interesting for those who could catch what Paul was saying of course!
We then drove on to Bray, our seaside
town, to meet our host families.
We spent the next two days in Dublin discovering the city, its sports facilities, sights of historical and cultural interest as well as its shopping area. At first sight it's a town full of Vikings (Dublinia), Leprechauns
(Templar district+), brightly painted doors, old cathedrals (St Patrick's, Christ Church), pubs , distilleries ( Jameson), breweries (Guiness)and Croke Park. However if you look closer you see the art galeries, playwrights', poets' and novelists' homes and influences, Trinity
College. The popular and cultural are intertwined a
nd mixed. The Liffey flows through Dublin slowly but surely cutting the town into northside and southside but the two do meet.
On Wednesday we headed for the mountains and a visit of o
ne of the most ancient Abbeys of Ireland. Fortunately the site was calm and peaceful so we could spend some time next to the lake thinking about the loved one we had just lost and our friend still in
hospital. Yes the terrible news had reached us too and we needed some time to pay our respects.
