nothing going to stop me now

Exams…… Finished!! And as of from this evening, I don’t have to know anything about college for the next three months!! I’m Freeee!

Now that I got that out of my system I can concentrate on the next two weeks! The real preparation time!

Here is a quick update of what I’ve being up to besides my exams during the last few weeks:


I sorted out my Travel insurance, which I found hard to get. There are 92 days from the 14th of June to the 13th of September, and most companies will only cover you for a maximum of 90 days. So with the help of some contacts, I’ve managed to get myself covered!
A few months ago I was in touch with Tourism Ireland wondering about material that I could use to promote Ireland and help us with our presentation on Ireland while over there. I received a load of posters, brochures, pens and pins [not enough for every staff member…sorry]. The girl who I was speaking to was very helpful and I’d recommend anyone doing this to get some of this stuff.
Gillian has being in touch with me as well, and booked our rail tickets (after much emailing and phone calls… thank you Gillian!) She should have them by Tuesday!!
Bernie, the International Commissioner for Scouting Ireland (CSI) also sent me a nice document on “Advice, when travelling abroad to represent the Association”, and that’s what I’m kinda doing… It made good reading, with some nice pointers!
I’ve got my website on the Scouting Ireland dot com Website! And also there will be some kind of write up on me that will be circulated to all Unit Leaders in the country on a newsletter some time in the future!!

Anyhow, now that my exams are over, I can find some time to get down to the finer things for getting myself ready for that early flight out of here.

Keep you posted!

YiS,

D.

questions and answers

Hello again! I’m delighted that so many of you like the website and I realise that its not the most exciting piece of work on the net, but hopefully it will keep some people up to date of my summer adventure and it will make good reading in years to come!

Last weekend I headed up to my Associations National Council, where besides voting on the formation of a new Association for Scouting in Ireland, I met Gillian and Ryan. We had a nice long chat about Ryan’s experience last year on staff, but he was careful not to give away too much! At one point it was like a game of 20 questions! I found it really helpful as he answered a lot of things we were wondering about. He also gave us tips from where to eat and where to climb, to a low-down of the long-term staff and basically made us even more excited about the summer ahead. He is also planning in coming over to the Centre for the August 1st festivities!

We also received an email from Mark with the themes for the International BBQ’s and some other information!

Themes for International BBQ’s and August 1st:
03/07 - Pyjama Party
10/07 - Black Plastic Bag Fashion
17/07 - Over the Moon
24/07 - Colour Blind
01/08 - Under the Sea - National Swiss Day!
07/08 - Beach Party
14/08 - Pyjama Party
21/08 - Cave Man
28/08 - Colour Blind
04/09 - Cross Dressing

There are also computers for the staff to use while I’m over there so I will be able to update and post entries to my Kandersteg Log!

At the moment, I’m in the middle of my exams, but there is only 30 more days to go till I depart! I hope to try to start to get all my stuff together and figure out how much stuff I’ll need to bring and so on.

I forgot to tell you the times of my flights, just in case you want to wave me off or organize a party for my return! On the 14th of June I leave Cork airport at 05:40 in the morning, where we head to Dublin airport. Gillian hops on for the 07:00 flight to Frankfurt airport where were due to arrive at 10:00.
On the way back, on the 13th of September our flight leaves Frankfurt airport at 19:50 where we arrive back into Dublin Airport at 21:00. Unfortunately there is no flight back to Cork available that evening.

YiS,

D.

train research

With flights checked off the list, a train is needed to get us from Frankfurt in Germany to Kandersteg in Switzerland! (We did look at the train timetables before we booked the flight to make sure it was possible to get to Kandersteg in time!)

The two websites that give us timetables one was the German rail website and the other was the Swiss one. There isn’t much difference between them, except you can only get the German platforms on the German site and the platforms you should be going to in Switzerland on the Swiss site!

Die Bahn
Swiss Federal Railways

For the German side of the trip a return fare costs £111, or about € 158.
The Swiss return fare costs 284CHF, or about € 187 including booked seats.

Our timetable is below:
Dep. - Frankfurt (M) Flughafen Fernbf - 10:54
Arr. - Mannheim Hbf - 11:24
Dep. - Mannheim Hbf - 11:35
Arr. - Basel SBB - 13:46
Dep. - Basel SBB - 14:04
Arr. - Kandersteg - 16:24
Duration of journey: 5:30

YiS,

D.