I can’t believe that I’ve already reached this point, but my semester in Galway has come to an end. My last week in Ireland was probably the hardest for me because it consisted of a long, drawn out series of goodbyes. I also had exams up until the morning before I left so I faced the challenge of making the most out of my last few days in Ireland while also studying and packing. During my last full week, I made two trips out of Galway. The first was to Cork, one of Ireland’s largest cities, which is located in the far south of Ireland. My second trip was to my Irish roommate Laura’s home in Offaly. Although the trip to Cork was thrown together at the last minute with two of my American friends, it actually ended up being one of my favorite places in Ireland. Our first stop in Cork was the Crawford Municipal Gallery, which we went to mostly because there was no admission fee. This spot ended up being a great find because not only did they have works from artists like Salvador Dali on display, but they also had a temporary exhibit on Michael Farrell, arguably Ireland’s most celebrated artist. We enjoyed the Michael Farrell exhibit so much that we decided to take advantage of the lecture on Farrell’s work that was being given in the museum’s auditorium by Robert Ballagh, another well-renowned Irish artist. Even though we were hesitant to take advantage of the opportunity because we thought we would lose too much time, we actually ended up learning a great deal about what it means to be an artist in Ireland and about what was behind a lot of the Irish art that was produced in the 20th century. Going to the gallery ended up being the best spot that we hit in Cork, and we didn’t even have to pay for it!
Two days later, my American roommate and I went to visit Laura in Offaly. Laura had gone home because there was a space of over a week between two of her exams so she didn’t see the need to stay in Galway. Laura picked the two of us up in her car from the train station and gave us a tour of the biggest town in Offaly and then of the smaller town where she lives. She also showed us the place where she has worked the past two summers, Bord na Mona. Bord na Mona is a peat harvesting company that extracts turf from the boglands that it sits on. Several years ago, a sculpture garden with pieces inspired by Offaly’s unique landscape was built on the boglands as well. In the midland of the park is a sculpture that features a large stone brought from Ellis Island surrounded by four large stones representing the four provinces of Ireland. This sculpture is meant to represent and celebrate the Irish presence abroad as well as Ireland’s role as a homeland. After hearing about Offaly so much from Laura throughout the semester, I couldn’t believe that I was finally seeing all the places that she had told us about in person. It was actually kind of a surreal experience to ride around in Laura’s car listening to the radio like I would with my friends back home. It was then that I really became awestruck at how comfortable I had become in Ireland.
Another thing that I made sure that I did during my last week in Ireland was say goodbye to my family that lives in Ireland. Because some of my cousins live in Galway, I was able to spend a good deal of time with them while I was abroad. This really enhanced my experience because it was a lot like having a host family whenever I needed one and helped me to get way more immersed in the culture than I would have had otherwise. Before I came to Ireland, I had been hesitant about studying abroad in a place where I had family because I felt like I would be staying in my comfort zone too much. However, if I hadn’t come to Galway for the semester, I wouldn’t have formed the relationship with my family in Ireland that I have now. At the beginning of the semester, I thought that I would only get to meet members of my extended family in Ireland. Instead, I was actually able to get to know them and now they really feel like family.
Saying goodbye to Galway was an experience with many layers. It involved saying goodbye to my family, saying goodbye to my Irish friends from college, saying goodbye to my roommates and finally, saying goodbye to the Americans on my program that had been with me this whole semester. There was also the matter of saying goodbye to NUIG and Galway itself. By the time that I got on the bus to Dublin, I fell asleep immediately because I was so exhausted from everything that was going on in the preceding days. I also had a bit of misfortune with my flight back to the states. Because the plane was fully booked, all of the overhead compartments were full by the time I was barding and I had to surrender one of my carry-on items to be checked beneath the plane. As I made my way back to my seat, I was stopped by a stewardess who told me that my remaining carry-on bag would need to be stowed below as well. I frantically tried to remove my personal items from this bag because departure time had already passed and I was one of very few passengers not seated yet. The anxiety of surrendering my bags to the staff at such shot notice and making sure that they were tagged while holding up the flight as little as possible must have really sent me over the edge because when I finally made it to my seat I just began sobbing uncontrollably. I must say, however, that I don’t think my emotional outburst was simply the result of this baggage nightmare but rather an expression of how overwhelmed I was at the idea of leaving Ireland. I had become an entirely new person in Galway. I had met the Taoiseach, learned how to play Irish sports, kayaked between classes, met and got to know my family, took my grandmother back to her home, completed group projects with people who had never been to the United States and learned how to live on my own in a foreign country. The people sitting next to me on the plane probably just thought I was upset at having my luggage taken away from me when, in reality, I was leaving home in a way that was far more complicated than the type of leaving home that I had done in August.
Goodbye Galway! #GWAbroad #GWU