I made the decision to go to Ireland, as I make many of my decisions, on a whim. I’ve always had a passion for adventuring, but it had been a while since I’d gone anywhere outside of my own little bubble. I had been so wrapped up in school and work that I’d forgotten how much I loved to leave everything behind and just go somewhere on my own. I wanted to study abroad and, when it became apparent that a full semester abroad was not a plausible option for my academic career, I started looking into summer programs. The two summer study away options in my field, the school of Media and Communications, were London and Dublin, and, since the Dublin program was less expensive and met more of my graduation requirements, I went with that one.

Up until the moment my flight left, I was fairly certain that this trip wasn’t going to happen. I had been constantly receiving emails telling me that I had missed a deadline for some important paperwork, I’d discovered that my old passport I needed to renew had gotten lost in the mail, and I was struggling to save up enough money at my dead-end job to afford the basic expenses of living in Dublin for six weeks. I thought the whole program was some kind of twisted joke right up until the moment when the plane took off.

When I was finally in the air, I realized that this was actually happening. I was actually going to be in Dublin for six weeks. And then, finally, the excitement set in. Six weeks of not having to worry about my job. Six weeks of exploring a new country. Six weeks of interacting with completely new and different people. I couldn’t wait.

I finally arrived in Dublin and, despite being exhausted from many hours of travel, I was ready for adventures. My first few days in Dublin were occupied by classes and getting lost on the way to classes, but the first weekend came around and I was ready to explore. My first Saturday in Ireland, I took a day trip to Kilkenny, where I walked through a castle, wandered through the town, and found a fantastic pub called “Hole in the Wall,” which, quite literally, was a hole in a wall. This pub was full of Irish history and the bartender was happy to tell us the history of the pub and discuss international politics with my traveling companions and me. The next day of that weekend, I traveled with a few classmates to Dún Laoghaire, a seaside town near Dublin where we walked along the beautiful coast and got fish and chips for dinner. Nearly every weekend during the trip, I went on some kind of adventure. I hiked the Slieve League cliffs in Donegal, had a pint at several of the many pubs in Galway, biked the entire island of Inishmore, saw the Cliffs of Moher, wandered the gorgeous hills of Howth, and went on many more adventures around Ireland.

Over the course of this trip, the love for adventuring I’d once had and lost was finally rekindled. Being in Ireland for such a short amount of time pushed me to take advantage of every opportunity so I could see as much of the country as possible. Even though I didn’t put much thought into the location of this journey, I fell in love with Ireland and the adventurous spirit it awoke in me. I hope to take this spirit home with me, because there are many parts of my home country that I always intended to see but still haven’t visited. I’ve always been fairly independent, but this trip has completely eliminated any lingering fear I might have had about adventuring by myself. I’m confident that when I get back to the US, I’ll finally start taking those weekend trips I’ve been putting off, and finally get to explore the land I’ve called home for my entire life.

-Jenny Hackbarth