Arcadia Ireland

Ah, thank goodness for February. There’s something so exciting about the long month of January being over. It’s already really obvious that the mornings are getting brighter earlier and the evenings are getting darker later. We won’t know ourselves when the clocks change and we have long nights ahead of us. For this week’s blog I’m going to have a little look back on our spring semester so far and what we have coming up.

We started off the semester with our orientations. These are always a great way for our students to get to know each other and, even better for them, it gives them a chance to stay right in the heart of Dublin. There were a couple of cancelled flights, lost bags and the usual stresses of flying but otherwise orientations went really well and our students headed off to their new campuses well rested, fed, and ready to take on what was ahead of them.

The highlight of orientation is always the ‘Experience Gaelic Games’ afternoon that’s held about 20 minutes from our centre. Here, owners Cormac and Georgina treat our students to an afternoon of story-telling, culture and craic. It is a brilliant afternoon and I must say, fair play to every group of students that went this January. It was FREEZING (and usually lashing rain) and everyone still got fully immersed in the Irish spirit of things and just got stuck in. We’re hoping that there may be a few new GAA players heading home after it! It was great to hear at the Dublin welcome meal that a few students had gone to our national stadium Croke Park to watch the first League game of the season where Dublin were playing the neighbouring Kildare shortly after their afternoon with ‘Experience Gaelic Games.’

We also just recently finished our welcome meals. I spent the evening in Limerick with our UL students after a walking tour in the craziest winds I’ve ever experienced in Limerick (and I was there for 6 years so that’s saying something!!) Tom visited both our Galway and Cork students and had gorgeous meals in two cool new restaurants in the locations. He reported back that students were buzzing and absolutely loving their new campuses which is always good to hear. Jodi was up next in the fabulous Picaderos in Maynooth. It’s always a crowd favourite and once again didn’t disappoint with the students raving about how great the meal was. Our Queen’s students had a casual pizza with fellow Belfast student Niall who was able to give them all the tips and tricks needed for college in Belfast. Grainne and Stephen wrapped the whole thing up with an enormous dinner at the beautiful ‘Church’ restaurant in Dublin. As the name would suggest, it is a renovated church and sitting in the gallery with the huge organ, stain glass windows and traditional Irish music and dance ringing around the walls is an amazing experience. Add very good food into the mix and there were 62 very happy students from our Dublin programs.

Our students are also now all back from their homestays. For this section of their program they head to a rural part of Ireland and really get immersed in the Irish community by living with an Irish family for the weekend. Students went to their host families laden with gifts, baking, stories and enthusiasm and it didn’t go unnoticed. Both families and students had a brilliant weekend and it’s definitely something students will always look back fondly on.

The best part… that’s all been done already and they’ve only been here for about a month!! Looking forward to February we have a group of students heading to Berlin in a couple of days to join up with Arcadia Scotland and Arcadia England to learn all there is to learn about a city steeped in history. Straight after this we are running two centre events right here in Dublin. Pancake Tuesday is coming up and so we need to make sure students get to experience pancakes the Irish way. Lemon, butter and sugar are traditional toppings and these paired with our more crepe like pancakes are delicious. They usually get some funny looks but students tend to love them once they’re tried them. On the same day we have Peter Kavanagh coming to give our students a talk about ‘’Making Study Abroad Work.’’ Peter is a leader in the non-profit sector and so can give our students insight into how employers see study abroad and how they can make it work even more to their advantage. Wrapping up the month we have our hugely popular ‘’Game of Thrones meets Giant’s Causeway’’ tour.  It’s looking like an exciting semester ahead and we can’t wait!