June was my last month in Dublin. To make the most of it we decided to visit Edimburgh, the capital city of Scotland, in UK.
Edimburgh is a lovely city, with his castle beeing the second most visited tourist attraction in UK. We stayed there for two days, walking around the city and checking out the different landmarks. We took two tourist tours in english to get to know the city’s history while practicing listening skills.
After this trip I had planned going to Liverpool and Manchester with Nerea but we werent allowed on the plane as she didn’t have a passport. Remember to take your passport with you when travelling!!.
Last weeks I worked on my project as it was due the 15th of June so I didn’t have time to go out or to visit any more places in Ireland.
Ireland is a nice country, full of welcoming people, beautifull landscapes, cheap flights, etc but it also has downsides:
- Cost of living in Ireland is the highest in the UE, the Erasmus allowance is not enough to even pay for the accomodation the whole stay.
- Finding short term accomodation is very difficult, start looking ASAP and remember that finding a private room under 650 euros is almost imposible. I had to switch between 4 different places on my first month.
- Buses are slow, it takes between 30 inutes and 1h+ to commute to the city center. Try to find a place that is in cycling distance to your work place.
- Dublin is not a safe city as we are used to in Spain, keep that in mind and try to avoid the dangerous neighborhoods.
Some advice if you are planing on doing your erasmus in Dublin:
- If you want to book housing via homestay, do not pay the 300 euros fee. Get in touch with the family and explain your situation.
- Don’t be scared of sleeping in hostels, they are a good temporal place to sleep while you search something better.
- Get your student leap as fast as posible, it will save you lots of money.
- Do as much tourism as possible, flights are cheap, take advantage of bank holidays and you will get tickets under 40 euros.
- Get the project done as soon as posible, this will allow you to have more freedom on June.
Overall the Erasmus in Dublin was excellent and I´m planning to return to Ireland with Nerea to live and work there for a while.
Thanks a lot for all your pieces of advice!. I am sure that it will be extremely helpful for future Erasmus in Dublin.
Thanks a lot for all your pieces of advice!. I am sure that it will be extremely helpful for future Erasmus in Dublin.