My time abroad has come to an end and it is definitely bittersweet! My internship ended on Friday and my co workers were so kind to make my last day special. They bought me lunch and gifted me a card signed by everyone, a Dublin flag, a Trinity knot necklace and got these super good gourmet donuts as a desert! I have had such a wonderful experience at the Dyslexia Association and had the absolute best co workers taught me so much. I feel as though completing this internship abroad has given me a new perspective and allowed me to experience what it is like to work in a foreign country.
I had a few days to spare after my internship ended so I decided to take a mini trip up to county Donegal and stay in the surfing town of Bundoran. This is a huge hotspot for surfers in Ireland and all over Europe. A lot of competitions are held here each year and Tullen Strand is the place you go if you want to catch some waves. I have never been surfing but have always wanted to try it so I signed up for a lesson, grabbed a board and geared up in my wetsuit. Getting on a soaking wet wetsuit is almost harder than actually surfing!! My instructor was great and super funny. We warmed up with some hippie stretches and counted it out in Gaelic (I had no idea what they were saying). Then we hit the water! I found it incredibly hard to stand up because it is so hard to get your balance. It was extremely tiring with the waves crashing into you one after the other. I managed to stand up for a few seconds about two times and felt extremely proud of myself. I was sore at the end of it but it was definitely worth it and something I would do again!
I also took a tour that boasted to show you some of the “hidden gems” of the north. It was a smaller surf company that ran it and our tour guides took us off the beaten path to show us some really pretty scenes of nature. I walked through the woods to see some ancient rocks that once were used by catholic priests as a podium to deliver secret sermons to the Irish people during the time when the English were taking over and ruled that Catholicism was illegal. We also saw some sea cliffs with amazing views and I was able to touch some sea anemones! Then we took a walk through some really cool looking mountains with some really amazing waterfalls and caves formed along it. Our last stop was in a quaint fishing village where we ended the day with a pint (how else would you end a day in Ireland?) The tour dropped us off back in Bundoran and I went for a really beautiful cliff walk from the main beach all the way to Tullen Strand. It was a great way to spend my last weekend in this amazing country.
