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Welcome dear old friends! Everything is amazing and wonderful and I think I rather spend another year here than a lifetime in Sweden. I honestly don´t have the energy to keep a blog any longer. It is not you, it´s me. I want to be HERE and writing a blog or skyping or texting with ye at home is great but it makes me feel less present in a way. It feels like I´m not doing THE MOST OF MY TIME. Well, I suppose I don´t DO that much anyway... Today I watched Whitechapel with Die Hostsister and finished an existential, quite pathetic poem. But still, this is my life now. I want this to be my life. I fear the 5th of June when I will leave it all behind so much! It´s like I always see it in very big, ink black letters in my head every time someone asks me which date I´m going "home": THE 5TH OF JUNE!! I just want to stay! It´s such a childish feeling really. I just don´t want to go to bed pappa! You have to, love. But I don´t WANT to!  So these last weeks I will cling on to Ireland like a child. I will really BE here.
     The last month has probably been the shortest of all of them. We had a sleep over and I got my ear pierced sort of as a souvenir. We´ve been to the cinema and to Dingle. I got a flu. Sophie was shortlisted for a poster competition. I sang Ack Värmeland, du sköna for the practical part of my music exam (and all the rest of the exams are coming up next week and it really stresses me out!). Yes, I know, it might be an unlikely choice. But then, why not? At least no one knew if I messed up the lyrics. I was so nervous though, ye can´t beieve it! Oh, and I have emailed one of the exchange students that will live here in our room next year. She seems so nice and I hope she will benefit as much from her year abroad as I have done. 
       If I only had more time! It feels as if I ought to do so much... I keep telling myself that I can come back later, but it won´t be the same. This that I´m experiencing right now will never come back. It hurts. I´m already homesick for Ireland!

Yours

Elin

I do admit it was a while. Spring is here and the birds and the trees and everything is just lovely and sparkling young. Over the last week a big part of my familiy was here and I stayed with them at a hotel. It was nice to meet them of course and to expeience Killarney from a tourist´s point of view. I showed them the obvious touristy things such as Muckross House, the Torc Waterfall and St Mary´s Cathedral as well as my school and my host family´s house. One day we hired bikes and did a long tour in the national park. I think they were all very happy to come here - I know I am! It´s good to know that Sweden is not simply a fictional world among the others... Ye see I seem to get so easily absorbed in whatever I´m doing that everything else becomes slightly imaginative.

      Today I was in Tralee to help collecting money for the Bee for Battens. It is an organisation dedicated to make life easier for children affected by Battens Disease. It was truly heart warming to see so many people giving up a little of their money and time for this cause. I felt proud to be a part of it! Though, I do know a good deed is no longer good when you boast about it - so therefore I won´t try to exaggerate my role of holding up a basket and saying "thank you very much" every time some kind spirit gave a euro! In fact, my reason for mentioning this at all is to ask all my readers to look up the webpage of Bee for Battens: http://www.beeforbattens.org/ if ye have a moment to spare. No human can really save the world, but we can brighten it!
      Not very much happened otherwise. I have decided on pursuing a career as journalist, preferably radio reporter. I have also watched almost all of the third season of Downton Abbey and found a new biography about Oscar Wilde to indulge in. Oscar is for me what chocolate or shopping or men with a bad reputation are for other women. We have a platonic but extremly destructive and complicated relationship. To start with he´s dead. My greatest misfortune is to have been born in a time that isn´t mine - and a country that is neither! (Yes, I know I always sound a bit bitter and overly dramatic when I´m thinking about my Great Genius)

Love

Elin

Good night (morning)! I´m sorry I have not written anything in three weeks. I honestly thought it hadn´t been so long - but anyway now I´m back! I don´t know if I have anything interesting to tell ye about though... I´m not sure I will be able to make sense either as I´m desperately tired and have my head filled with the Russian Civil War of 1920. 

     In the beginning of this month we went to Galway with EF. It is a nice little town  situated by the sea. We walked a lot, down the main street and by the shore, picking shells and feeling the salty smell of sea I have missed in Killarney. I found a statue of Oscar Wilde with whom I took a selfie (selfie=a photo of yourself). We stayed over night in a hostel and left arounf one o´clock the following day. On our way home we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher. It was by far one of the most impressing scenaries I have seen in my life. The majestic pale rock threw itself into the roaring waves - I can simply not make it justice with my still flawing English vocabulary!
     The 17th of March is Ireland´s national day, called St. Patrick´s Day. We went to Dublin by bus to see the big parade that is held there each year. I can´t say we saw much of the actual parade because of all the people, but we could hear it and catch a glimpse of a hat or an arm every now and then. The feeling was great, though where we stood I heard very little English - and even less Irish English! There were loads of tourists, many wearing T-shirts stating that they were proudly Irish. I suppose it is true in a way. Being Irish is not as much belonging to a nationality as a state of mind. We strolled back to the bus after the parade. I was delighted to get some photos with another statue of Oscar Wilde. I have a very problematic relationship with him right now. I´m quite angry with him for his self assurance, but then - the creator of the Happy Prince can´t be a thoroughly bad man!
     Last weekend Alena, Jessica and I went to Limerick. We visited King John´s Castle and I finally found some nice second hand jeans!
     What else? Well, I did my fasting and it went fine. I hardly felt the hunger. I was a bit cold and tired, but it was okay. We have found a very nice Indian restaurant to which I want to bring those of ye that come here in three weeks (three!). I have started watching Downton Abbey. I discovered that Franz Ferdinand has made an adaption of the poem The Lobster Quadrille from Alice in Wonderland. It is well worth looking up becuase in my opinion the band has really succeded in capturing the dreamlike, insane mood of Lewis Carroll´s books.

      This will be all. I will try to upoad some photos - but I can´t promise anything!
Love

Elin 

 

Hi everyone! First and foremost a big CONGRATULATIONS to my dear uncle David who had his birthday last week! I hope you had a wonderful day! One of the worst things with being away like this is that I miss so many birthdays...

     This last week... well... I made a pinata with Alena and it took seven hours, but the result was quite nice. Half eleven on Friday night, when our hands were all sticky with glue, the kitchen table was a complete war zone and that stubbornly wet pinata suddenly decided to sink together to a Bee Empire of the Decadence (reference to the Academic Style in France before the Impressionists, as I know Sophie is reading this every now and then. Speaking of Art History, it is one of the most... interesting subjects I´ve ever had - and for all the wrong reasons!). 
     Saturday I was in town with Barbara and Pia where we listened to one of the coolest band I have ever heard (youtube Lurgan) which sang modern pop songs - translated to Irish. Otherwise I have not really done anything worth writing about... Oh yes, I bought a biography about Oscar Wilde and cried for at least an hour because he´s dead. Some would call it an obsession - but then we all have our weaknesses. Mine just happen to be a bit different towards the conventional ones.
     On Wednesday lent begins and I will try to do it as a real Irish Cathlic and deny myself everything sweet for fourty days. Therefore I´ve been eating chocolate like in compulsion the last days... In two weeks I will also try a 24 hours fasting to raise money for the Irish charity organisation Trocaire. This lent their focus country is Malawi. This is their web page: http://www.trocaire.org/ I would be delighted if ye would like to sponsor me. This far I have raised €9, but my aim is €30. If ye want to donate a small sum, please contact any of my parents (I suppose ye all know them).

Love

Elin

P.S. In 3 months and two days I will trod Swedish soil again. Ye don´t know how strange that feels!

So today I went back to school after the Midterm Break, as I know many of ye have done as well. I´m quite tired, but it feels good to "do" something again. However, this last week was very hectic in some ways. Femke and her parents came back to Killarney for the first weekend of the break as did my Swiss friends, Deborah and Prunelle. On Tuesday my nan, aunt and cousins came from Sweden and stayed until Friday. I was so happy to see ye again! Together we explored Killarney the way that fit children: playgrounds, a disco, the swimming pool and horses. We ate a lot too. I always am though. It seems like I´m constantly digesting some meal or other! Then on Friday night I went to the cinema to watch the lego movie with some friends from school and later on to the Youth Club. Saturday I hardly went outside the door. Instead I updated my tumblr blog - I´ve slowly become addicted to tumblr! 
      Okay, I know this is very brief - but I´ve sort of lost my energy for blog keeping... It´s not ye, it´s me!  

Love

Elin

Dear readers,

it is terribly cold and rainy! I don´t remember last time I was thouroughly warm. Instead of stop being cold I just stop noticing that I´m cold. Though, I shouldn´t complain! It seems as if the spring is already approaching. And next week we´ll have Midterm Break and I will be visited by some of ye! 
     This last week has, once again, been interestingly normal. We went to the cinema last Saturday to see The Wolf of Wall Street. It is definately shocking and obscen and all the characters are completely horrible and immoral - so I love it of course! The actors are just great and it is a thought provoking story. Though, I don´t recomend it to anyone under the age of 18 or someone just the slightest sensitive. I really mean it. Don´t watch it. 
     Otherwise - well, I don´t know! I just carry on with my life. In school I try my best, and sometimes it pays off. Today my History teacher made me emberassed and a little proud by saying in front of the whole classroom that my results on our last test was the best in the class. I´m showing off, I know - but then, why shouldn´t I? I have forsaked many an episode of Merlin for the sake of studying History! To continue witht he boasting, the friends I have here are the sweetest and the friends I have elsewhere in the world, be it Sweden or Germany, the Netherlands or China, remember me. I love ye all! I think the biggest blessing in the world must be, not to be loved, but to love. I never really understood how much my friends and my family meant to me until I experienced how it was to live without them! I have said so many good byes this year... Now, I will never again have all the people I love around me - there will always be someone missing! It is sad, but wonderful at the same time!
Love

Elin

Welcome and happy Monday (if there is such a thing). So, now I´m here again. Newly showered, pleasently full and completely blank of ideas. This weekend we (read: my Irish friends and I) met up to watch a film and eat chocolate and talk. That is about as interesting as it gets. To be honest with ye, one of the charms with being here in Ireland is that my life is so well-known to me now. Things are not as exciting and new as they were in the beginning. Or well, other things are... I might be quite confident with my English progression and how I´ve adopted to the whole culture and I have seen the most urgently important tourist attractions, but I still experience something new every day. My relationships to others and to myself develop. However, these are the things that are difficult to retell. They don´t sound very interesting I´m afraid. It´s carrying a bag, four school books and a cup with hot soup while trying to open the door with your foot. It´s people forgetting your age and your nationality because you´re very much 16 and Irish (or German, but let´s not dwell on that) in their eyes. It´s the same people noticing... things you never thought of. Yes, it certainly doesn´t sound very interesting - but for me it is more thrilling than everything else I´ve experienced on this island.

       This last Friday we had a mass in school because of St Brigid´s Day (which, I think, was on the Saturday). It is a strange thing, for me, participating in a mass with school. I´m so used to the Swedish view on religion and education - that it´s not really politically correct somehow to express spirituality. I suppose it will change someday here too, but I´m happy I´ve been able to see an Ireland where religion is so mystical and taken for granted. Sometimes, I do think it´s a bit... ridiculus (if I may say so) for instance having holy water in plastic bottles, but as a Christian, and also as a humanist, I think Sweden has much to learn when it comes to acceptance of different faiths. Those who say that religion excludes have probably never considered that atheism can exclude equally. It´s not our beliefs that distance us from eachother, it´s our inability to accept without questioning.

      That was deep. Sorry. Didn´t want to throw ye into a political reflection so late at night! It´s usually my priciple never to discuss anything serious after six. As you see, I´ve been reading quite a lot of Oscar Wilde lately. I always get slightly philosophical when I read his books. My vision of heaven is a light oak forest where a pot of roibos tea is always at hand and I can walk arm-in-arm with my dear Oscar. I will name my first child Oscar. Or my first cat, depending on which life style I´ll settle for.

     Anyway, I´ve kept ye all too long! All my love!

Elin

Stormy greetings from Ireland! This last Thursday Denise, Sussi och Max left Killarney and went home for good. I miss them very much but I am so thankful that I have had the opportuntity to get to know them! I know that I will have friends all over the world when I go back from here in June! Sophie is my new host sister so I´m not completely alone in Denise´s and my old room, and of course my other friends are still here. This week I have thought a lot about how happy I really am to have the friends I have! I realised that with Irishwomen (and I suppose with most paople), a clear sign of friendship is that they show you their "bad" sides as well. The kindest girl starts teasing you, the one that all the teachers love explains how to shorten your uniform skirt in the most discret way and the coolest girl who is always turning everything into a joke is not ashamed to cry in front of you. I don´t know how I will be able to leave my whole life here! I have already been here more than half of the year, and it has gone soo fast!
      Anyway, this Friday we saw 12 Years A Slave in the cinema. It was fantastic and everyone was bawling afterwards. I recomend it - but bring plenty of tissues! On Saturday, Alena, Sophie, Jessica and I went to Cork. We did some shopping and touristing within the city: rang the Shandon Bells, ate crêpes and strolled down St Patrick´s Street. We also made a tour with Paddy Wagon to the Blarney Castle, where we kissed the Blarney Stone (which should mean that we now have the gift of eloquence), and to the town of Cobh with its lovely slanting streets and beautiful cathedral.

      So, as last thing I would like to send my congratulations and best wishes to the soon to be married couple!
Love

Elin

Dearest readers!
This Monday I actually have quite a lot to write about! It was not until today that I realised that more than half of my time here already has passed. It´s so weird! It feels as if I´ve been here several years, and at the same time as if this welcome weekend in Maynooth was a week ago! The 5th of June I will go back to Sweden, and I can only really see so far. Next summer, with the graduation of so many of my friends and Frizon and hopefully a driving licence, seems distant and somewhat unreal. This is the world that I live in. My Irish worries and dreams overshadow everything else. What I mean with this is that ye have to excuse me if I ever forget someone´s birthday in Sweden!

       I´ve heard about the awful weather ye have. Here, the birds are already singing like it´s March and the weather is great (or well, it´s Ireland...). I claim that it´s spring, though the Irish girls think I´ve lost it. There´s still snow on top of the mountains so I suppose they´re right when they say it´s winter. It looks gorgeous anyway! The mountain tops are like little white hats, decorated with fluffy clouds. Then add the rising church towers against a fair, glowing sky and you have the view that I meet every morning when walking to school. There is a reason why Kerry is one of the biggest tourist counties. 

       This weekend has been one of the best this far. It´s rather tragical as it was our last weekend together with the half year students. We mourned this in a restaurant with the best deserts in Killarney (I´ll show it to all of ye that´ll come here!). We bought Irish flags too so that everyone could write a short message or draw something nice on them as remembrance. On Sunday we went to an old golf course outside Killarney where we played Laser Combat. It was muddy and wet and cold, and extremely funny.Now my muscles are aching, but it was worth it!    

      Sadly enough, it´s only two more days until Denise, Susanne and Max abandon us. I will miss them sooo much, because they have been like my brothers and sisters! Well, at least I will have somewhere to stay if I visit Germany in the future. I will always have a small German extension of my family! 
Love

Elin

P.S. There´s been som slight confusion about wether I´ll have a new room mate or not, but no, the exchange student that was thinking of moving in has decided to go home instead. So, I will be all alone the next four and a half month. THANKS DENISE!

Hi and welcome back,
I see in the statistic that my readers are getting fewer and fewer, but I know I have some loyal ones left! I´m standing here in front of the computer, with a mug of warm milk and one of the last gingerbreads mamma sent with me from Sweden, feeling more or less perfectly happy. In spite of a History test tomorrow. And the fact that loads of other exchange students, including Denise (!), have decided to go home. They will go on the 23d. I will miss them terribly, but it´s their own decision and for some of them I really think it was the right thing to do. Nothing would however change my mind and make me go back to Sweden! As I said, I am happy here, most of the time. I have still some exchange friends left and my friends from school. This weekend we met some of our (rather) Irish friends to eat lunch and play poker (with sweets). As ye might expect of me, I don´t have a poker face at all, but for being the first time I played it properly, I enjoyed it very much! One of the girls said that she will start having poker nights every month, so I´m looking forward to that. 
      Another reason I´m happy is of course that the third episode of the third season of Sherlock aired yesterday!! I  haven´t watched it yet, and I´m nervous and excited beyond description! 
Sooo... I don´t have that much else to tell ye about. I´m back in my old routine here and nothing really worth telling  has happened. I miss ye all!!
Love

Elin

So now I´m back again! I won´t say ´back home´ because I know that would upset some of ye. Though that is quite much what it feels like. Let´s say I have two homes. 
      As ye know I have been in Sweden over the Christmas break. It was soo nice to see ye all again! I did have an amazing time and ye definately kept me busy. Especially great was it to meet my little brother for the first time! Other highlights were baking kladdkaka with a certain pagan, chatting with my dearest fairy and hobbit, and having at least a hundred of fikor with practically everyone. 
     Here everything is fine. It was nice to meet my international friends again, even if there is a slight homesickness chaos at the moment. I´m not homesick though, so don´t get yer hopes up! I must admit that I miss  proper bread already (and of course ye all!), but I can do without my ´homecountry´ as such.
     Awfully sorry that my text is so short today. But ye can hardly have started to miss me yet anyway!

Love

Elin 

This will be the last Monday blog update in quite a while as I will be in Sweden next Monday. I leave this Sunday and will, as most of ye know, stay in Sweden the whole Christmas Break. I am strangely unexcited to be honest... I do look forward to meeting ye all, but when I come back here I know that I will only have five months left. It feels way too little! How am I supposed to learn and experience all that I want, in that time? This autumn has been so short and I fear the spring will feel even shorter! But one day in a not too distant future I think I will move here permanently. Yes, I want to return here when I´m twenty-something and become really really Irish! I know some of ye will kill me for saying it, but I prefer Ireland to Sweden... It´s not that I won´t miss to see all of ye readers if I live here, but I feel so much more at home in the whole Irish culture than I ever did in the Swedish. Those of ye that understand the reference: coming here is for me like coming to Hogwarts was for Harry Potter. I have lived my whole life feeling slightly... abnormal, and suddenly this half-giant tells me I´m a wizard! 
     Anyway, I do have a lot of grand things to come home to! Little söte baby brother for instance! And my Irish sized family! And my lovely friends! There won´t be a moment of silence and peace for me I reckon! I have started packing my suitcase and it´s more than half-full with Christmas gifts! I don´t know if I´ll be able to bring any nice clothes at all, so you better hide your favorite skirts Astrid, if you want to have them yourself!
      The Christmas feelings are slowly, sloooowly coming. We have sung innumerable Christmas carols with our school, Church and our choir. Today I realised that I finally knew the lyrics to Silent Night, only to find that I´ve forgotten the lyrics to the Swedish equivalent Stilla natt! I try to keep the Swedish traditions up though, even if I´m the only Swede in Ireland with EF. Last Friday, which was St Lucia´s day for all of ye who already has gone into hibernation, and I celebrated it through dressing up as Lucia and baking lussekatter for everyone. My efforts met with mixed resluts. Some appreciated it, while some claimed me in a lusselinne with a candle in hand, was the creepiest thing they had ever seen. 
       This Saturday we watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with some friends. It was good. It was not as fantastic as the first film, neither did it make the book justice, but Orlando Bloom and Martin Freeman (and the parts where you could almost hear Benedict Cumberbatch´s voice break through Smaug´s) made the film worth seeing! However, I don´t recomend it to those afraid of spiders. I know I will never be able to go near one of those eight-legged monsters again! Denise will have to rid our room of all spiders in the future!
Your Elin  

Dear readers,

as the very first thing I want to tell ye tonight is that I now have a little brother!! I´m so happy!! I can´t wait til I can see him! I don´t know what to write, because these sort of events just seem to be too big for words. After all, this text is merely black letters on a screen and - which might be a strange thing for someone with writing ambitions to say - life and its simple miracles are greater than what all the languages in the world can express.
    I´m still so stunned by the news that it feels almost blasphemous to write about anything else. But I suppose ye still have an interest in my life here as ye´d otherwise wouldn´t have come here... So I´ll do my best! This weekend we were in Dublin. This was the third time in a month that I´ve been there and I just love the city more and more! We were approximately 60 students spread out in two hostels. Just the experience to share a tiny little room with five friends was grand - and not as challenging as it might sound! (Though you´d better double check your alarm next time Sussi!) We went touristing and shopping and ate nice food in nice restaurants with nice people. You do meet the strangest people in Dublin... For example fifteen grown-up men dressed up as reindeers. I´d say we were a rather interesting group as well, with our santa hats and shopping bags, racing down the streets and taking selfies with Oscar Wilde. Other highlights were falling in love with the shop Lush and hearing an amazing street band in the night when the street lights twinkled like stars (gosh I´m so poetic).
       I look very much forward to go back to Dublin soon again. I guess next time will be in two weeks when I´ll fly back to Sweden. Speaking of, I have only a handbagage to bring with me home, so please don´t give me too many presents!! I am actually perfectly satisfied with just meeting ye all again! This is also a sort of apology that I won´t have very much for ye with me... If ye are good maybe I´ll bring more in June ;) Oh, June! It seems far away but I know it´ll go way too fast! Please don´t be offended but I don´t really want to move back... I love Ireland more and more!! I´m sure those of ye that will visit me will realise why!
Your Elin

 

So this is Christmas! Hm... The leaves on the trees are just after falling and there is no snow whatsoever. However the poor Irishmen, who are used to this, try their best to bring some sort of artificial Christmas spirit. Walking home from school in the dusk, the whole townwas covered with light decorations and from the shops Christmas music same streaming. The taste in Christmas songs differ very little, so, no, I won´t escape Last Christmas this year either.
    Last Friday there was a Christmas parade through the main street. It was a strange, Irish, whole-hearted mix of Christmas carols and uilleann pipes, Santa and gaelic football players, motorbikes and cheer leaders. It was very unlike anything that could happen in Sweden. I loved it. Later on we went with some of the Irish girls in our year to the cinema to see Catching Fire. It was good, but it didn´t really contribute with anything. I mean, it was an exact replica of the book without any attempts to develop the story. I know many fans will be happy for this, but I consider it to be a little too ´safe`. The company was great though. And the popcorn.
     This Saturday we finally went the Ring of Kerry. Even the last day of November, it was a stunningly beautiful tour.  

     Today it is Monday again, but I am not too reluctant to go to school in the mornings. The first few moments when I try to seperate myself from my bed are horrible, I admit that, but the school itself is okay. I don´t have much experience of the Irish school system, but I think the pres (as the locals call my school) must be a good school. The teachers are generally strict but kind. But of course not this alone could make me go to school every day with a more or less present smile. It is bringing Swedish nougat to school to let the Irish friends taste it and when leaving the last little piece on my desk, finding a note in its place twenty minutes later saying that I´m sorry I ate your whole bar but it was sooooo good! It is sitting in a group of Irish girls who try to explain to you what ´turf` is and then in turn letting them read Swedish sentences a loud for the fun of it. It is having someone leaning too close, according to Swedish measurements of the personal space. It is wondering how the name Jonathan possibly can sound like Jedi. It is sometimes feeling more Irish than Swedish. It is friendship and learning more about everything. 

Dear Readers,

I am back again here in front of the laptop with the words of Mumford and Sons streaming out from my head phones and filling my ears, but not really covering Denise´s rapid German in the background. Last Friday we had been here for exactly three months and had one left before we´d go home for Christmas. It also happened to be Denise´s birthday. Susanne, Alena and I and all the others had planned a surprise party for her. We brought balloons and our gifts to a restaurant where we hid until Fabian (who was visiting last week) led Denise there. Surprisingly enough, she was actually surprised! We spent some time in the restaurant, eating and talking, it all felt very sophisticated and grown-up. 

     Last Saturday Denise and Fabian, Alena, Sophie and I went to Cork for some shopping and touristing.

 

The town was amazingly beautiful, already decorated with Christmas lights. It was strangely good to hear the sea gulls again as well. I didn´t realise before that I missed them.

Something even better was the large book shops we didn´t seem t able to leave once we had entered, and the English Market.

 

There were thousands of different chocolate sorts and biscuits. And meat. It was somewhat a distasteful mix, but I could stand it for the sake of the vintage style clothes and jewellery shops close by. In the night we ate dinner in a very nice restaurant with an even nicer waiter (right Alena?), before going home by bus.

     This is a little short I know, but it is all for now. 
Love

Elin

P.S. Where are you now? Where are you now? Do you ever think of me, in the quiet, in the crowd? (Mumford and Sons)