The Greyhound raising, the Donkey Sanctuary & a dog competition

Hello again!
On Saturday evening ,the 17th,  I went with my host family to a Greyhound raising. It was a huge stadium which is only for Greyhound raising. It was my first time at an event like this. I put money on three  dogs and of course I ended up putting my money on the dogs with the best names=) I won once and lost twice. At the end I won 3,20 euros ! (  6,20 euros winnings and 3 euros loss)
All in all it was really cool and I enjoyed it!

On Sunday, the 18th, my host family and I went to the Donkey Sanctuary  in Lisscarroll.
It is a place  where donkey from all over Ireland find a new home when they have been badly treaten from their owners. It  was really stormy so all donkeys were in a huge stable. Afterwards we went down the hill where the Donkey Sanctuary is located to the centre of the village Lisscarroll. There were some stalls with cute things. Some were to raise money for charity and some were run by young people to raise money for the local community in Lisscarroll.  There were also some girls who played irish music- They were pretty good!
At 15:00 Lola, the dog of my host family, took part in a dog competition. There were categories like the Friendliest dog and the dog with the waggiest tail. Unfortunally Lola didn't win. I think the competition was a bit unfair because all the dogs were so excited to meet each other that they couldn't really show how friendly they are normally.
All in all this trip was also great!

The donkeys...

The dog competition

The butter exchange and the Bells of Shandon

Yesterday I visited the Butter museum and the Bells of Shandon in Cork city.

It rained on the way to the butter museum and when we arrived we were wet all over.
 At 12:00 was a demonstration which showed how butter was made in the old days. It was quiet interesting and at the end we could taste the butter - it was delicious=) In the museum we learnt how successfull the butter trade in Cork in the 19th centuary was. From Cork butter was sold to the whole world!
Afterwards we visited the Bells of Shandon. The Bells are really famous and although it was a bit expensive it was worth it! You are allowed to play a song on the bells, which you can hear all over Cork. I played Amazing Grace. =) Past the bells we climbed to the top of the tower. The view from the tower was amazing and we were lucky because the sun was shinning again.

The Butter museum

Butter demonstration

The view from the top of the tower

Autumn is arriving in Cork

What I have done in the last few weeks

On Sunday, the 4th of October I visited "Fota" with my host father and my host brother. It is a huge wildlife park and thousands of tourists are visiting it every year. When we were there we couldn´t see  many animals because the most of them stayed hidden but it was a really cool trip!

 Hier noch ein paar Bilder von den Tieren, die ich gesehen habe...

Some random facts (School bus, sunrises and other things)

Hey=)
Here are coming some facts which you may like to know:

The school bus is yellow! Every morning it is collecting me at the end of the drive to my host familys farm. It is always the same bus with the same bus driver. She knows all the students and also some older sisters and brothers of them. When we leave the bus in the morning and when we are going into the bus after school we always say hello and thanks to her. I think that is a really nice touch and I will keep doing that when I come back to Germany. The radio is always turnt on while we are on the bus, so I call the bus "the music bus". Oh and I hope that I won´t try to leave the bus on the left hand side when I am the first time on a bus in Germany back again=)

 The Charity shop  is from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVP). The money they earn through selling the secondhand clothes (and sometimes furniture) is used to support people in need in the Cork area. The clothes  which they can´t use because they are to dirty or beaten-up are getting recycled.

 The sunrises and sunsets in Ireland are totally amazing. It is a pity but I don´t have so many pictures of the them because everytime I see the beautiful sunsets and rises I am riding Rocky or going to school in the morning.

The Overnight stay at the Blackwater outdoor education activity centre

I am so sorry I haven´t wrote something since three weeks. I wasn´t really consistent ( I nearly wrote "consequent" but because of your great English book, Dad, I know it better=))

So last week I was away with school to an Overnight stay at the Black Water Outdoor Education Activity Centre in Castletown roche, Blackwater. We stayed there from Tuesday morning, the 13^th  to Thursday afternoon, the 15^th of October.

 We got into differnet activity groups for our stay there. I was in group A. Our first activities on Tuesday morning were the gigant swing, the leap of faith and the crate stack. We began with the crate stack where we had to build a tower out of old beer crates. One person stood on the tower and the other person gave new boxes to him from the ground. I did together with Julia and we got into the height of seven boxes( which wasn´t really high:)). Then we did the great swing wich was totally horrible. Two people got fixed to a bar which hang from a 10 meters high tower. Then all the other people from the activity group pulled a rope which was connected to the bar and pulled it into the  same height as the tower so that the people on the bar could look straight down to the ground. It was so terrible for me because I am really scared of heights. I am really happy that I overcame my fear and after the second back swing it was really exiting but I would definitively not do it again.
 After the lunch break (tomato soup and pasta) we did Orienteering/ Navigation. We had to find about 18 different points which were all over the ground of the activity centre. Each group of four got a map where the points were marked. On each point was a different hole puncher which made a unique mark. I really enjoyed running through the forest and looking for the points altough we were the last team which came back to the base.

Afterwards we did some team building games like forming letters with our bodies and walking together on the walkers (five people have to walk together on two long wood boards). Then before dinner we had a short history tour about the castle in Blackwater. It was interesting and the view from the top of the castle was amazing. After dinner (Shepard’s pie) our groups got split up for our night time activities. First we went outside and did a blindfolded rope. Eight girls (I got blindfolded too) got blindfolded and two other girls lead us along a rope which was connected to different trees. We did, as in the team building games, boys vs. girls. The girls won and then we went inside to do some games.

After this day we went tired to our beds. I am happy that the girls slept the first night in the dormitory because I even freeze a bit inside and outside were minus temperatures.

 After breakfast in the next morning my activity group A went tubeing. We had to wear helmets and wetsuits ( Neoprenanzüge). Then each of us got a hoop ( aufblasbarer Reifen) and with the hoop on our head we walked down to the river. I think it looked a bit silly but it was the best way to carry the heavy hoops. The water was the most time only hip high but absolutely cold. In the middle of our tour we reached a part of the river which was deeper. The instructors turned five hoops upside down and we had to run over them. It was cool but absolutly freezing when I fell into the river after running over the hoops. We continued our journey down the river and before we got out of the water we saw some people on the Zipe Line (Seilbahn) over us. It looked really scary. When we came back from the river to the courtyard we had a hot shower  . While we waited for the other groups to come back we learnt some survival skills. For example I learnt that you need sleep before you need food. After lunch break my group did Archery. It was cool and I once stroke the yellow in the middle. Then we did climbing at a tower and afterwards we did paintballing. I think I won´t do it again in the future! I still have a bruise (Prellung) on my arm and the most of the time I was just hiding behind a tower of old car wheels.

Then after dinner we did the Zipe line (Seilbahn) in the dark. While we waited on the first platform to go over the river by the Zipe line I was a bit nervous. The first second when I left the platform and speeded over the dark forest was scary, but then it was amazing! I enjoyed speeding through the dark forest to the red light on the other side of the river where the other platform was located. From the other side we went back by Zipe line. Afterwards we did a walk along the river in the dark and then we sat at the campfire and drunk hot chocolate (it was hot chocolate with hot water instead of milk which isn´t as horrible as it sounds=)). Then we went in our tents. We talked a bit and ate German sweets and chrismas biscuits.  Fortunally I was really warm because I had two sleeping bags and wore three layers of clothes.

The next morning after breakfast we did the Zipe line in the day light. We went four times in total over  the river. It was fantastic and the trees had lovely autum colours. Then we did a climbing parcour in about five meters height. After lunch (chicken and noodles) we drove back to Blarney. 

I was reallly tired after the trip but all in all it was a great time with lots of cool activities.