After a lot of trouble and mishaps, I was finally on my way to Ireland. Here, I was going to spend the next four months of my life. It was funny; on the one hand I was looking forward to it, but on the other hand I really longed to be home. There I was, in a strange place, in an unknown house with people I had never seen before, would spend 4 months with and would probably never see again after that. That's the way it goes. They seemed nice, but hey, I had only met them five minutes ago and half of them hadn't even arrived yet.
The first three weeks, we were busy selecting modules. I wasn't sure on which ones to take; they all seemed very interesting but not quite fit for my curriculum. Finally, I chose some business and some humanities modules. Of course, I did not fit into any of the curricula the University of Limerick had set for itself, so my classes were with different people all the time. Very nice, because that way you get to know a lot of people. I noticed a lot of differences between my own and this University. Professors were more personal here, organisation was less steady, and technology was not in the least as important as they were at my home University.
Another thing that struck me is that there really is a big difference between Dutch culture and Irish culture. People act different, they dress different and they like different things. I mean, it is common knowledge that the Dutch are very punctual and the Irish are more laid back, but even if you know this, it comes as a surprise and irritates you terribly.
As it turned out (like it always does) I got along really well with some of them and not so well with others. But luckily, after two days school started and there were lots of opportunities to make new friends. I had figured I would stay away from the Dutch people, trying to make it a real international experience. I did pretty well at the beginning, making friends with a German and a Tsjech girl, but it appeared that everybody else tried to keep things simple and stuck with their own language. So I adapted, and stopped ignoring the Dutch :-). 
Life in Ireland was easy. I lived on a small complex, 50 students in total, right in between University and town centre. The big mall was a 2-minute walk, and so was the river. It was a nice place to live in (except for the crappy landlord), all needs were cared for. Unfortunately, living close to the mall meant having to walk 20 minutes to University each morning, but it beat taking the bus. That usually took longer anyway :-). It took about the same amount getting into town, which wasn't too bad: shopping takes a whole day anyway.
