It's final

Time to write on. With still little signs of yesterday’s sunburn this day will be the first of my last seven in Dublin. It’s time to give you an outline of my last week, so you know what keeps me busy. You have to excuse me for my English though; it’s somehow deteriorating due to too much sleep and laziness.
To start off: Indeed, sunburns. Yesterday was Ireland’s hottest days in sixty years if you ask me, cause everybody was going crazy in the streets and all parks were overloaded with people! The sun shined and there was no single cloud in the sky. This resulted in red people like you only see them on the Canary Islands during a nice summer with many Brits. And I decided to take advantage of the situation as well: I was outside the entire day, resulting in a nice glow on my skin now. Happy weather times in Ireland, who would’ve thought of that in my final week?!
And of course it’s cloudy today, so no reason to leave the house, except for some grocery shopping I’ll have to do. I have to think about something to eat, probably end my Dublin time as I started it: potato wedges and fish sticks. Long time no fish or potatoes, so actually not such a bad idea! Today it’s Bank Holiday, which results in empty streets and boring situations, other than the days of in the Netherlands are (when everybody jumps in their car to enjoy some nice traffic jams on their trip to Scheveningen, de Efteling or Ouwehands Dierenpark). So indeed, I’ll keep up with the Irish and stay in. No reason to leave the house anyway…
Tomorrow will be day one of my “plans to have a productive week”. This means that I will go to the Garda station (Police) and put in a declaration of stolen goods. During my 4,5 months stay somebody nicked my winter jacket and my watch. In order to get some money back from my insurance I will have to have some solid proof that it has been stolen. This is actually the first time I took an insurance policy that paid off, instead of always paying for these things and having nothing to file for. Not that I’m happy though; all the cold Irish nights without a proper jacket and the timeless hours spent without my (nice!) watch can’t be solved with just 160 euros. But it helps though ;-).
The day after tomorrow I won’t watch the movie, but I’ll write some obligatory stuff for my home university. The central International Office requires me to write about my Irish experiences and so does the International Office of the Faculty of Arts. So this means I’ll be writing two papers on my experiences. Good thing is that I can use one master copy and tweak in into two papers. Saves time, effort and useless mumbling about nothing. But still, this is all part of my exchange so I’ll have to take this serious, while I had almost nothing to do here so I force myself to do the things I have to do in a proper way.
Wednesday night we will throw a party in our house, themed “Rock and Metal Party”. Therefore I will have to work on my “outfit” by getting some cardboard boxes and crafting a guitar out of that. And then get some beer, clear the kitchen and living room out and get my iPod in place. This party will hopefully be a lot of fun, as it’s one of the final parties that many will attend as almost everybody (90%) will fly home the 30th or the 31st of May (me too). I’m looking forward to that.
Then on Thursday, I wanna have a look at an assignment I will have to hand in at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and pre-finish the thing up so I can have it checked by my teacher before actually handing it in. I have to get this right cause when I get a pass this will mean I’ll have my Bachelor Degree in Business Communication this summer among the first of my year, and that is what I want. I might not have the highest grades, but I passed all my exams in one take and even though I went on an Erasmus semester I finished it all up within three years. This means I will be in the top 5 or 10 percent of my year, and that is what I always planned for.
Friday will probably be my last Dublin party night out, as many will leave on Saturday and I want to chill out on Saturday night to be fit on Sunday when flying back the Amsterdam. I don’t want to be late at the airport this time, and in order to save myself from stressful situations I will just take it easy and leave my dorm on time. Saturday will be an important day for me, as DOVO will play the promotion/relegation (degradatie) match against DETO. When they when, they’ll stay in the Hoofdklasse. But if they lose, it will mean that we will have to play Eerste Klasse next year, and that is not what everybody has in mind. Three years ago we were in the same situation and lost the match after 23 minutes of injury time (!!!). The year after that we were champions in the Eerste Klasse and therefore got back into the Hoofdklasse again, but I don’t want to have another season like that. Therefore the 30th of May will be of great importance and I am quite sad that I can’t be there in Wezep when the match takes place. But I’ll stick to the radio and be nervous all day, so I’ll still be there somehow. I wish everybody good luck that day, and I hope that the help of the supporters will get us through the match and secure another year of Hoofdklasse.
Ann finally, Sunday will be the day I’ll leave Dublin. After 4,5 months, it is time for me to leave this city of rain, high prices and great night clubs. People who read my previous blog know more about my opinion on Dublin and the months I spent there, but still I want to stress that I learned some stuff here and I grew stronger out of it. Coming back to the Netherlands will mean my own room, football and Albert Heijn again, but it will also mean crappy Dutch music in the El Sombrero and annoying paupers in the busses. Bottom line is that every place has its benefits, and it is up to you to find the place where you belong. I haven’t decided yet where I belong, but Dublin it checked off my list.
I hope to talk to you later in my next blog, probably written and sent to you from Dutch soil.