Irish friends who found I was having a visitor, Australian student Jess Brass from Finland, are amazed at the logic she and I used for her visit - it is so close she just had to visit. They don't perceive Finland as close where as both Jess and I saw an opportunity to visit a friend in a country only three hours flight away as very possible. So after convincing the Rotarians who are sponsoring her in Finland she arrived for six days and an Irish experience.

Just as well she is fit and amenable because she had full days walking around Dublin, a six hour walk in the Wicklows (in rain, sun, rain, hail, sun, huge winds with horizontal hail and a little bit more sun) and then while walking in the hills I thought why not show her the west coast of Ireland. So the next morning we set off on the train to Galway - based on the logic that I could study for my exams better on a train than a bus. Three hours later we had found an hotel and were travelling around Galway in the Irish sunshine in an open top bus - bliss.

What a lovely place the west coast is - easy going and full of music and pubs for the comfortable listening of said live traditional music. Now when you get to Galway it is tantalizingly close to the Aran Islands so tantalizing in fact that we worked out a way to get there and still get Jess back to her plane to get to Finland the next day - we would fly.

Ten minutes in the air and we were on the historically interesting Inishmore which has a 'fort' dating back 4,000 years and built on sheer cliffs that drop into the Atlantic Ocean. It was a magical day and we both went back to Dublin very happy with our west coast experience (and with at least one hours study under my belt).

Three exams down, one to go and three "farewell" dinners to attend and then I leave Ireland I can't believe it has arrived so soon.