It was my first time ever living with a host family and therefore I guess it was just normal that shyness and akwardness overcame me on my first morning when i was just about to join the family having their breakfast. But only after a few days it already felt so normal and all my initial concerns about the family vanished.
Joyce and Vivien were such open-hearted and outgoing people and they probably would have done anything for us. It even kinda felt like they were the grandparents I never had.

However, Lisa and I were not the only girls that stayed with  that lovely family. A 14 year old spanish girl and an older spanish teacher stayed with us the whole 4 weeks. Our house was already very crowded at this time but that didn’t seem to bother our host parents. They also hosted 3 little french girls, who joined us after our first week. Later, our host parents told us that they love it to have such a full house. They said they miss the times when their own kids were younger and their lovely little house was full of noise. For this reason they keep accommodating exchange students even if it’s just for one month a year.

Apart from those humans we also had some cute furry flatmates which included two dogs, a dachshund and a japanese spitz, and three elderly cats. My roommate Lisa and I really enjoyed having some pets around us, even though the cat‘s meowing in the middle of the night really annoyed me sometimes.

As our hostdad spent most of time working we often joined Joyce walking her dogs around the park in Dunmore East or along the beach nearby.
After dinner they always put on the kettle and prepared some biscuits for us, which was literally the best part of the day. We then often had loads of interesting conversations with them and if our hostfather was really into something, he wouldn’t even stop telling us.

In retrospect, I would say that living with a host family in a country with a different language was a really mind opening but also a very challenging experience. Either way, I am glad that I had the guts to spend one month abroad.

-Jessica Ulmer

During our trip to ireland we had the opportunity to stay in a host Family. Everyones family was located near their workplace, which is one of the reasons why we were distributed in whole waterford.

I stayed with four other students, two spanish boys, a girl from vienna and a friend from our School at Lizs place. Our hostmother (Liz) has adult children which already moved out, so we had enough place and no one shared a room. I am really happy, that I stayed with all of them because we always had a lot of fun. We played poker, watched netflix and cooked together.

Our hostmother has a cat and a dog, the dog was our favourite one we took him out for walks or played with him a lot.

The house we lived in for a month, was located near the river, so nearly every evening we walked the 3 minutes way down to the river and enjoyed the sunset and good weather we had. 

Liz was always very kind to us. She picked us up and lifted us, even when she had not to. She also organized a bike for me to be independent, so I could cycle to work.

All in all I am really glad that I had the chance to experience the Irish culture and I would do this project again.

Angela Stankovic