All posts by Juulia Peltomaa

Hi, how are you?

Learning Diaries, Training Places,

…Is a rhetorical question. Unless when it isn’t. You’ll get the hang of it.

At work Sofia has planned activities for arts and crafts group and organized all the art supplies. The other group she has been working with is a democratic youth club. Her work mostly has been consisting of observing youngsters planning for an event where they will invite students from other schools.

I on the other hand have been busy with lots of different groups in Tuam. We have Syrian refugee families, junior clubs, senior clubs and many more. The group I have spent the most time with so far has been Tuam Comhairle na nÓg, which is Irish for youth council. They had an area event last week. There were about 50 young people taking part in it, busy day. I also went to their regional meeting to Galway on my first weekend here. Great bunch of youngsters.

Our new bff.

Last Saturday we got the opportunity to be judges in a talent show organized by Youth Work Ireland, Galway. Amazing acts were seen on that day, people here are so talented. After that we went to see Beauty and the Beast! Flipping amazing movie!

Two weeks went by flying. We have spent our weekends together in Galway and Tuam. Also, there is no working on Fridays, which is cool with us. And on Thursday we will begin Easter break and it will last about two weeks. We shall keep you updated … every now and then. Don’t expect too much.

Love from Ireland!
Juulia and Sofia

PS. Pictures coming in 3..2…1 HERE

And so it begins…

Learning Diaries,

Monday, March 20th. The day is finally here. We have been waiting for this for what feels like forever.
Our flight to Dublin left at 7:50 am, which by the way meant waking up at 5 am for me and around 3 am for Sofia. We arrived to Dublin at 9:05 local time (11:05 in Finland) and we were meant to take busses which left 40 minutes. So… getting out of the plane and going through passport check took 20 minutes. At that point we had the other 20 minutes left but we had no luggage and both of us were starving. I hope someone would’ve taken a video of us running around the airport to get our luggage and buy sandwiches, that had to look hilarious. I mean, our luggage were as big as us and well, it was a mess. Anyway, we got our luggage and food and there was 5 minutes left to find the right busses. And so we started running again, just to find out that our busses would leave on the other side of a parking garage. And running through there was not as easy as yelling “excuse meeee!” and “Sorryyy!” to people standing at one place. In the end we made it; Sofia got to Ballinasloe and I got to Tuam.

Now it’s almost half (past) four and I’m exhausted but happy. In my opinion the weather is warm and it’s sunny at times, I mean it is Ireland so raining is a part of the deal… and the work place and co-workers seem really nice. I think we are almost finished for today and I can finally get some rest. I’ll upload some photos I took on my way to Galway once I have the energy to transfer them from my phone to computer etc.

That’s it for today, I’m off to bed. 🙂

Juulia