Sad, but this is my last blog for Ireland
There are so many things happening this week, on Tuesday night Trump announced a travel ban on all EU countries expected the UK and Ireland. Everything after that accelerated fast. It was a tough night, I bet not a lot of us was able to fell asleep tight that night. We were all worried about the Corona-virus and the program being canceled because of that. We had our music class on Wednesday morning. This weekend was our first free weekend, so 7 other people were planning on going to Scotland for the weekend. They had to end up canceling the trip because UNK didn’t allow them to go. I stayed home that day, called my mom. She was scared, she wanted me to go home.
It was a really bad time for me. I don’t know what I should do in this situation. Later that day, we got an email from UNK that require us to go back to the US ASAP. We had a meeting in Marta’s house to go through some details, but we don’t have any information rather than we need to go home. The flight ticket at that time was so expensive, but thank God, Jordan’s dad called the school, and UNK agreed to buy us a flight ticket home. I was upset in this whole process, it was so much information to take. We don’t know what is going to happen, because things are changing by hours.
On Thursday, all of us decided to go to Galway for the last time. I didn’t wake up on time to go with them, because I was up late can’t all asleep. Leia and I went into Galway together later that afternoon. We shopped around for some gifts and just walked around a little bit. The weather that day was great, it wasn’t raining or anything. Galway is literally the most beautiful and cutest city I have ever been, saying goodbye to this city was so hard. It feels surreal to be in Galway, and it feels surreal to leave as well.
It was just so unfair that this happened while we were abroad, but what is fair? I just really hope that I will get a refund back for this program, it cost me way too much money to be in Ireland for just one month. I am just so upset because this semester is probably the only semester that I am able to go study abroad. Now, that’s ruined. I spend about 2000 dollars to just get my visa done for Ireland and Europe, and that is basically out of the window.
I was debating on between going back to China and returning to the US. It was really hard to make a decision in this short of time with no much information. I was scared, I feel like I was gambling with my future because this is a ban for the Chinese citizen to enter the US. I don’t even know if I will be able to get into the US. No one knows how long this will last, so I don’t want to go back to China and not being able to come back to the US. Also, I feel like I should be with my family at this difficult time.
I was shocked to know that our flight was on Saturday morning at 9 AM. I thought that it will be way later, but it is what it is. I remember gathering at Marta’s house to give her our passport information. We sat around the fireplace, and we were just talking. Dan was playing the guitar and singing a really beautiful song. It was just that short moment of quietness that really got me. I got so sad, I feel like I just started to be friends with everyone and getting to know all of them. I think I teared up at that moment. It was so hot in that room with 13 of us sitting together around the fireplace, I almost passed out with all those thoughts in my head.
The night before we need to leave, we finally looked at what is in the attic. We found a letter from the group before us, it was a letter of advice about all the places and things that we should go to while in Ireland, and we wrote a letter to put it up there as well.
We had potlucks for the last time, and PJ opened his bar that night. I went over for a little bit, I left early because I had too much going on in my head, and I just don’t have the headspace to drink and have fun. I went back to my room and took a quick nap before we had to leave. The bus came to pick us up at 2:45 AM, it was a tough car ride.
The custom service was crazily jammed, our flight was at 9 AM, and we got to Dublin airport at 6 AM. We went through two separate security check, which was weird to me. They double-checked the people that went to other European countries during the last 14 days, and that process was way longer than ours. We made it to our gate on time, and it was around 9:20 that we were boarded. Because 25 people are still going through customs, we waited for them for another couple of hours. We finally took off around 1 PM, and still, 9 people did not make it. I was so exhausted, everything after that was blurry to me. I slept through the whole flight.
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Flora in Europe 