My name is Evie Carter, the Irish group leader for this year’s CSS Valencia programme. I’m a university student studying Business and Spanish in Trinity College Dublin. I did the CSS Valencia programme 2 years ago when it first began and I have wanted to return to Valencia ever since – and here I am! Throughout the next three weeks I will be keeping this blog to keep you all informed about what we do each day in Valencia.
Today is Sunday, July 1st and I met with all of the students and their families in Dublin airport at 3:45 pm – 3 hours before take off with Ryanair to Valencia. There are six of us flying over from Dublin – myself, Abby, Daniel and David, all from Kildare, Aoibhin from Galway, and Ulan from Belfast. There is one other course participant – Daisy from Dublin – who flew over earlier today via Barcelona and we will meet her tomorrow. Abby, Daniel and Ulan are under 16 years of age and all under-16’s must be accompanied by an adult when flying with Ryanair. A couple of months ago we had to link their flight reservations with mine so I can act as their accompanying adult and now we have to be in the airport early to check-in, in person, all together.
In Dublin airport departures, all the students said their goodbyes to their families and the 6 of us flying from Dublin checked in our bags and headed for our gate. It was a late flight, we didn’t take off until 6:45 pm and we landed in Valencia at 10:35 pm. After passport check and picking up our bags we didn’t get out to the Arrivals hall until after 11 pm where the students and I were met by Liam from CSS Valencia and the host families in the airport. After some quick introductions and a few photographs of all of the students, everybody left with their respective host families to their new homes in Valencia for the next three weeks.
Last 2017-2018 group of Transition Year (TY) students return to Ireland