Wednesday, 3^rd February 2016

I'm at school, sitting on my every day's desk and looking out of the window, at the cold and foggy landscape that covers the building like an heavy blanket.

It has been just a few days since my classmates left for Dublin and I can't stop thinking about how things would have been if I had decided to join them in this adventure.

Even if they have been there only for less than three days, I'm quite sure they have already met a lot of new people, visited new places and made new and unforgettable experiences, which is one of the reasons why I deeply regret not having gone to Ireland with them.

Until now, one of the most exciting aspects of their stage must have been the fact of living in an other family, a family who speaks a language that is completely different from their native one and that has different habits and manners. I have already tried this experience twice (the first time in France and the second one in England) and I can assert that it has been a great opportunity that allowed me to grow and to become more independent and self-confident.

Of course, this kind of experience implicates an effort: it's not easy to speak a foreign language from when you get up until you go to bed, but you have to work hard if you want to learn, improve your skills and have fun at the same time.

Who knows how my host family would have been...

However, I hope my friends are getting on well with their temporary families, because it would really be nice if they decided to remain in contact with them as I did with Mrs. Christine, my host mother from Chester, and Marta, the Spanish girl that was hosted with me in England this Summer.

As regards school, they are surely learning more than us and also having more fun: we have already been tested orally in Philosophy and History and tomorrow I will probably have to study Biology for the test, which is a subject that I really don't like because you have to learn a lot of notions by heart.

Moreover, we are all quite disappointed, because we have already lost a lot of lessons with our teachers that, even if they are at school, can't stay with us because they have to look after other classes with more students. However, I really hope this week will pass as soon as possible, because I find this situation completely unbearable and annoying.

Differently from us, I imagine my classmates are learning a lot from this experience, even from little and simple every day's actions like taking a bus in a foreign country or ordering some food in a pub. Also, they will have the opportunity to visit Dublin, the most important museums of the city, the Trinity College and to make a trip to Belfast!

In addition, they are speaking a lot of English every day, and this will be really advantageous for them when they will return at school: I'm sure that also those who have many difficulties in English will have improved their speaking skills after this stage, which is a very positive point that might also help them to achieve better results at school.

I really wish them all the best and hope they will return home full of pretty memories.

In conclusion, one of the few positive sides of going to school this week is that we had the opportunity to be tested orally before the others who are in Dublin so that when they will return at school we will have less work to do; however I think that, even if they will have to work harder after their return, they are much luckier than us, because they had the possibility to make a wonderful experience, to have fun and to learn a lot of things that they would have never known if they had stayed at home.