I'm from the Netherlands myself, lived in Cork (Ireland) for a year, and I'm moving to Germany in about a month.

Living in Ireland (as an exchange student) was great - no trouble with the language (I'm an English student) at all. Also learnt some Irish, which I had done on occasion before. I already liked Irish music, but living there inspired me to take up fiddling (unbelievably, I found that I couldn't get violin/fiddle classes at my local music school, because at 22 I was too old and automatically placed at the bottom of waiting lists every year...but I found a private teacher, which is much better).

The majority of foreign students in Cork tended to stick together. This was partly due to the fact that the College stuck them all together in the same flats. I found a private flat and had Irish flatmates, which is great for integration. People from France, Spain and Italy definitely stuck together much more than Germans, Americans, Scandinavians and Japanese, but I think this was mostly because they preferred to talk in their own language: English was rather difficult for them.

Now that I have to move to Bochum, Germany, I'm planning on taking German conversation classes. It's so long ago since I learnt it...

BTW, anyone know of any good sessions in the Ruhr area?

Letty Groningen, The Netherlands