Ireland over Australia? Your Kidding, Right?

My friend Katlyn was recently trying to decide between studying abroad in Ireland or Australia. Of course I’m a bit biased, but I told her to go to Australia and then proceeded to tell her all the ways that Australia is amazing. 

The truth is when I was deciding I had a hard time deciding between Australia and Ireland. 

I have tons of family in Ireland and visited once or twice and always wanted to stay for an extended period of time. But then my curiosity got the better of me and I decided on Australia. 

I have always had a fascination with Australia, it being halfway across the world and all. I’ve always wanted to go and thought this was the perfect opportunity to visit. 

The flight from New York to Brisbane can sound pretty daunting (approximately 24 hours from my house in New York to my apartment in Brisbane) and I thought if I’m going to spend all that time on a plane, I want to stay there for a while. Studying abroad was the perfect solution because when else would I get to spend a long time in another country on mostly my parent’s dime? 

Also, I figured that Europe was so much more accessible than Australia and I would have my whole life to be able to travel around there. My mom on the other hand wasn’t so convinced because of the distance so I had to come up with other ideas. The internship program that is offered in Brisbane turned out to be a great selling point, and a terrific experience. 

Finally, I wanted to go somewhere people spoke English. I know it’s probably totally unadventurous of me but I am not good with languages. I took French for about 7 years and still couldn’t pull off a normal conversation. 

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to go to Europe but not for a minute do I regret the decision I made. 

-Lauren Doran '10