Well what a brilliant start to TY. We just finished the first part of the German Exchange. Basically for the past 25 years Lucan Community College has ran an exchange programme with Gymanisum Munchberg - a secondary school in Bavaria. This year only ten people from Ireland and ten people from Germany are participating, its a small group, and at first we thought that might be a bad thing, but no, it was a great thing! The Germans arrived on Wednesday 7th in the evening time. We were all really anxious to meet our partners for the first time. We greeted them at the arrivals of terminal 1 like a group of spanners waving flags and holding banners.
Day 1:
After meeting our exchange partners, we loaded their bags onto the bus and headed back to Lucan to settle them in. The bus journey was a little awkward, everyone was a bit shy but that didn't last long. The first night of the exchange my best friend and his partner came over and we got ice cream and watched a movie. At this stage none of us knew how it was going to go.
Day 2:
The next morning we went to school as normal with our partners to discover our teachers had organised the annual Treasure Hunt around Lucan. Basically we were split into groups of 4-6 and were given a list of riddles in German and English in which we had to decipher in order to find out where to go, when we found what we were looking for we had to take a picture in front of it. The locations were spread around Lucan, mostly in the village. We all sped off in our separate groups determined to get the best time. After about two riddles being solved all of us gave up and decided to amalgamate into one large group. I tell you we had some craic. It was a fantastic way for us all to get to know each other and we all found all the posts together. Towards the end of the hunt we realised that we were near my best friend's Granny's house. We thought it would be funny if we all went in to see her, so all 20 of us arrived at her house. Instead of her having a heart attack she opened the door with open arms and a beaming smile and invited us all in for tea. It was hilarious.
Day 3: Day 3 was another great day. On this day we went to Causey Farm, Co. Meath for an authentic Irish experience. Here we baked brown bread, rode on the back of a tractor and went bog jumping. Bog jumping was the best part of day, to be honest there's nothing better than a good aul' bog, there's something oddly satisfying about jumping into a hole of mud haha. When we came home we all had a nice long shower (because for some reason they decided you know what, we dont need showers, we'll just use a hose instead). After dinner we all met up at one of the Irish's house for a party/chill night. We all chilled to music, played charades, sang songs and of course tried to teach the Germans a pÃosa beag Gaeilge. "An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtà an leithreas" proved to be a tricky one, but "póg mo thóin" seemed to roll off their tongues with ease. To really immerse them into the Irish spirit we even tried teaching them the bodhrán. All of a sudden the Irish decided we were all pros at bodhrán and came up with many inspirational quotes and teaching techniques. "Be the bodhrán", "If you're afraid of the bodhrán you're afraid of yourself". It was a really great night!
Day 4: Day 4 was a deadly day. It was my exchange partner's birthday so obviously we had a gift for her. All the irish parents organised that we would go to Zipit in Tirbradden Woods. After a full day of ziplining and high ropes we made our way to Go Quest. Go Quest is a place in Puzzle World with many different rooms, basically you're split into teams and you have to earn as many points as possible by going through different rooms and earning points by beating the room, the harder the room the more points you earn for your team. My Team were Die Unglaublichen (The Incredibles). In the end it was a draw. It was gas craic but i tend to get very competitive so i got a bit too into it haha. After Go Quest we headed back to our homes. My family got a takeway and then we went with my best mate and his partner to Finnstown Castle to chill.
Day 5: That morning my family brought my partner to Dun Laoighre to walk the pier and grab a bite to eat. This was particularly special for my partner because she lives in the midlands so very rarely gets to see the sea. After getting food at the markets we headed to Lucan. That day the Lucan Village Festival was on so a group of us met in the village to show the Germans around and see what was going on. We went rafting down the weir which was fun. After the village we all made out way to Base, Maynooth where our school had organsied for us to go Bowling and to do laser tag. Bowling was bowling, not amazing but still good craic. Laser Tag was one of the funniest parts of the exchange. The German's trashed us 1000 points to 400. The irish were always useless at rebellions! Sure we couldn't even do 1916 right!
Day 6:
This day we went to the Chocolate Warehouse (Caffrey's) to see how they make their chocolate, we even got a chance to design our own chocolates. After the warehouse we went to Howth to do Howth Head. Unfortunately there was gale force winds and a bit of rain, but we still really enjoyed it regardless. The scenery was beautiful and it was another great opportunity for us all to get to know each other. We walked from the top down into Howth village where we got the infamous Beschoff's Fish & Chips.That night we met back up in the school where we had to put posters together of pictures taken during the Exchange. That night we all went back to one of the Irish's house for a party. There was food and drink and we even took the instruments out for a sing song at the end. It was a really great night.
Day 7: That evening we all went to one of the Irish's house for another party. This time we had a campfire. One of the Irish have a really big back garden and at the end of the garden is a fire pit. So we all sat around the campfire and chilled to music. It was a really chill night. We finished the night sitting around the fire with the guitar and we sang a few songs. It was a nice way to come towards the end of the exchange.
Day 8: Day 8 was the last day of the exchange. Germans had classes and we spent the morning setting up the hall in preparation of the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the German Exchange. It involved a lot of music, speeches and passionate speaking.
In the evening we all went to the school for the farewell party. There was food, drinks and it was a very casual atmosphere. We all stood up one by one beside our partners and made speeches about how the German Exchange impacted us. It was very emotional and some beautiful words were spoken by all. We finished the night taking photos together and we all sang a traditional German folk song "Moge die Strase". When the song finished everyone was bawling crying. It was really hard to say goodbye.
Day 9: We made our way to the school that morning with all our partners luggage and departed out ways in the carpark of Lucan CC. It was very emotional again with more tears involved.
The German Exchange was such a good experience in Ireland and now i can't wait to go back over in February!
