Tuesday, 1 Jan 2008
We were in Galway to celebrate the New Year. In the Simons community was a big party with the topic “fairy tale”. Midnight was not as exciting as we thought it would be, as in Ireland fireworks are forbidden. On the first of January we went to the cinema to eat Ben and Jerry's icecream and watch the movie “Earth”.

My adventurous journey to An Charraig:
It started on Monday the 7th of January in Hamburg. I took a flight to stormy Frankfurt, but luckily I am not frightened of flying so I didn't care that it was a bit shaky. My flight to London-Heathrow was late because the crew forgot to enter the plane and the passengers were not allowed to leave the bus bringing us to the plane, otherwise maybe someone would have tried to start the autopilot and I would have caught my third flight that day. But I didn't. So I had to stay a night in ugly Heathrow instead of a cosy B&B in Shannon.
Really early the next day I flew to Shannon, where an Irish lady welcomed me saying "It's raining. I always know I am back home when it is raining." (She didn't look as if she liked being home, though). I had some spare time in Galway to look about and I liked it. But when the woman of the buscompany told me, that there was no ferry today, because of heavy storms, Galway didn't look that attractive to me anymore...
At least I wasn't lonely anymore - Justyna was also stuck. Still I preferred to set forth to An Charraig all alone and took the other bus, ferry, minibus and Dara's car. Justyna was so worried about me, that she sent an helicopter to follow my ferry. So I arrived safely and had the best starting conditions to feel welcomed.
by Franziska Bauss

Friday, 18 Jan 2008
We all went with the car to the pier to say goodbye to Justyna and Bastian (Janinas Brother). It was sad to leave Justyna, our office volunteer, behind, but she is only going to Dublin so we will have the chance to see her again quite easily. Hope you are alright and all the best from the An Charraig team ;-)

21-27 Jan 2008
Cassandra, Anja and I were in Dublin for training. We enjoyed the time in the Emmaus centre while the others had to work hard at An Charraig.

Tuesday, 29 Jan 2008
Cassandra gave her first Dutch lesson. Sentence of the week: “Ik hou van reusen kwallen”.