I can’t believe this is my last week in Ireland. The eight weeks have truly flown by. Despite that, I can say I am looking forward to going home. I enjoyed my time in Ireland and am so grateful for how much I have learned and grown through this experience, but I am ready to see my family and friends, and embark on my next adventure. However, there were still some notable events and reflections that took place this last week.

My internship experience has been absolutely amazing these past eight weeks. I have really settled into my role, finishing up my last couple projects and learning so much and sharpening my skills. I have learned and developed in so many ways, many intangible, besides the point that this was my first time being abroad completely by myself, this was also my first office job. I learned how to navigate workplace communication such as communicating my workloads, deadlines, the right times to ask questions and to listen. I have enjoyed learning how to build professional relationships and find my confidence in meetings, and so much more that is so hard to explain. I grew both personally and professionally every single day. I’ve gained a deeper understanding of how I work, how to communicate my needs, how to balance fun and focus, and so much more. This was an incredibly formative experience, and I’m truly grateful for the opportunity and everything it taught me about myself and the professional world. I have enjoyed working here a lot and will never forget the experience and the lessons I learned. I have made friendships with all of my coworkers and had a ton of fun working and growing everyday.

As this was my last week, last week my boss set up a “summer shin-dig,” as he put it. My boss ended our day after lunch, where we were surprised with a ping pong tournament. I did not know this, but our office building has a ping pong table and we spent just a little under an hour doing a mini tournament between the six of us. This was great fun and bonded the company even more. However, the day of events did not end there. 

After the ping pong tournament, we went to a place called “Go-Quest,” which is a teams based activity where there are many different challenges hidden behind doors ranging from easy to hard, under different categories such as mental, physical, and mixed. This was an absolute load of fun. We broke up into two teams and had ninety minutes to accumulate as many points as possible by completing the different team based challenges. Many were quite difficult, and very interesting, requiring lots of team work and problem solving. I had loads of fun doing this with my coworkers, and it was very interesting to work together outside of the office.

After the fun afternoon, we then went out for a company paid dinner to a restaurant called “The Little PYG.” Unbeknownst to my boss, this restaurant was on the “Official Top 50 Pizzeria Europa 2024” list, being named the “Top Pizzeria In Ireland” for 2024, and the top pizzeria in 2023. When I saw these red placards that looked identical to the ones I saw at The Dough Bros in Galway, I was immediately excited. The environment in the restaurant was pretty cool and unique, but it did not have the same small pizza shop vibe as The Dough Bros, however when I saw the wood fired pizza oven, and an elderly man moving several pizzas all around with a big wooden stick, I knew I was in for a treat. I can confidently say that the pizza lived up to the hype. It was delicious, but hard to determine if it was better than The Dough Bros as I only tried one pizza pie here, compared to the four I tried in Galway. Still, this night was definitely one I will never forget and was an awesome experience to add onto the trip.

As I have stated countless times throughout this blog and my previous ones, my experiences in Ireland have shaped me as a person, and I have learned so much about Irish culture and history, developing as a person in so many ways. I am so grateful for everything I got to experience and every adventure I went on. This entire trip was absolutely amazing, and will be something I will never forget for the rest of my life. Trying to end this post off, I am getting sad thinking about how this will be my last Ireland blog and I am reflecting on all of the cool and amazing memories I have made. Ending this blog will truly mark the end of the trip, and it is a weird feeling thinking about it. I loved this trip and loved practically everything about it. But now I am off to my next adventure and my next set of experiences which will have their own lessons and I will grow and develop as a person even more. Thanks for reading my blog, sadly, this will be it for my Ireland posts, over but never forgotten. Bye!