Dublin, Monday the 10th of October 2011

Monday morning, 6.45 the 6v group arrived at The Hague Central Station for the exciting trip to Dublin. There were some delays which, fortunately, didn’t affect our tight schedule. After a smooth landing preceded by heavy turbulence we arrived at Jacob’s Inn. After a short time spent “redecorating” our rooms we were sent out into Dublin where some students led the group on a tour covering most, if not all, cultural buildings in Dublin. A nice dinner in an original Irish restaurant, including typical Irish music, marked the end of our first day in Dublin.

Tomorrow back to school at Trinity College where some lectures will be attended and we might get the first taste of college life over the border!

Mark van den Bergh, Tom van der Helm, Christiaan Heesters, Freek Swart

Tuesday the 11th of October 2011

Yet another rainy morning in Dublin, Ireland. Today we were off to Trinity College, which is Ireland´s oldest and most prestigious university. We started with a guided tour by a professor in philosophy. He was very entertaining and provided us with a lot of information. We walked through the campus and visited the chapel and the Old Library, containing the Book of Kells. After a nice lunch we attended an information session about the college itself. For the rest of the afternoon we got some free time.

In the evening we had the dinner at O´Sheas, which is a typical Irish pub. After dinner we watched the Ireland-Armenia football match. Ireland won! We spent the rest of the evening at the hostel. :]

Inge van der Spek, Claudia Mui, Saskia Veldkamp

Slideshow Weergeven

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Wednesday the 15th of October 2011

Today, at half past 8, we set off to walk to our bus stop from where we were being picked up by our tour organization to leave for the Wicklow Mountains. After having picked up 2 other groups, we had a long (and very bumpy) ride to get to the mountains. The first photo-stop was at the Guinness Lake, famous for its stories and black and tan colours. Our second photo-stop was at the waterfall which led to a valley. At around half past 11 we arrived at the first big stop which led us to a walking tour around a monastery and the Lower- and Upper Lakes of the Wicklow Mountains. Two of our students thought it was a good idea to have a refreshing swim.. luckily we had good weather (surprisingly)!

Thanks for the entertainment Jan and Lion!

We left the lakes and went on to a small village, Avoca, where we could have lunch and where we could have a look at the weaving mills. After a sleepy return to Dublin we arrived back at the hostel.

In the evening we had a free choice of our evening meal and at 10 pm we started playing improvisation games in the common room. We played very typical Irish games (see the irony in this sentence) such as: “Moordspel”, “Namen raden” and “Draaideur”. We had a good laugh and ended the day nicely.

Pim, Kirsten and Eva

Thursday the 13th of October,

On Thursday’s programme we were to look into the great number of famous Dublin writers, such as James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Jonathan Swift and Samuel Beckett. After breakfast we went for a walk through Dublin and visited the Writers Museum at Parnell Square and the James Joyce Centre on the beautiful North-Great Georges Street. For the first time in Dublin the sun was shining and coats were taken off.

After an hour’s lunch break we gathered in Parnell Square where Mr. Raubenheimer was to give us a workshop in short-story writing with a particular reference to epiphanies. An epiphany is

the sudden realisation of the (larger) meaning of something. We had to think of a little story ourselves and then act it out in the square.

On the way back to the hostel, we shopped for groceries since we had to cook dinner ourselves. The class had been divided into several groups, each with a specific cooking-related task. Half an hour later than planned we were all sitting around the table enjoying the Thai main course and the great Banoffee Pie, which we had for desert. We had planned to go for a walk through the Temple Bar district, but with everyone so tired after this long day the plans were changed and we spent the evening in the hostel.

Jan, Lion, Akshay

Saturday the 15th of October

Our last day was quite a relaxing day. We could sleep in a little bit, had breakfast, packed our luggage and ended the morning with the results of the photo contest. We were excited to see all the photos everyone had taken during the week. Inge had the best ‘places’ photo, it was a photo of the girls’ jammed bedroom, she won some pretty nice socks. Lion had the best ‘people’ photo, it was a photo of Jan in the Wicklow Mountains, he won a pretty nice green hat. After this we discussed the week and gave some tips on how to improve the trip for the next year of 6TTO.

We had some free time to do some last minute shopping, souvenir buying and to grab a bite. At two o’clock we left for the airport. While writing this we’re actually in the aircraft and even though we’re excited to go home it has been an amazing week!