April 2, 2014

• North or South?

  I mentioned last week that I was disappointed to discover I couldn’t do the UK SWAP after I did one in Ireland due to my age. I think it’s totally bogus that all countries don’t allow you to be up to 35 to do a work exchange, because sometimes it can take a while to pay off school loans. I don’t know about other people, but I don’t want to be touring the country while my debts go into collections.

  When I mentioned my sadness (but not my age-related rant), I was told I could do a UK SWAP now and then one to Ireland after. I knew that was an option, and yet it wasn’t. I did not want to put off going to Ireland again, even though people told me I could visit as much as I wanted while living in England. There was also the worry of if I’d manage to get money saved up again in order to do an Ireland SWAP right after the UK one as time will be tight in order to make that age deadline too.

  And then I looked into the UK SWAP anyways, because I didn’t want to miss a possible opportunity to live in my second-on-the-list of my travel bucket list. I don’t understand how I could have so stupidly forgotten NORTHERN IRELAND IS PART OF THE UK!

  Yeppers, Ireland has a north and a south with each belonging to a different swap program. I could do the UK SWAP and live in Northern Ireland if I wanted… but I think I’d only want to be there for 6-12 months and use the rest of my time to live in Scotland…or Wales… or jolly ol’ England. If I had trouble finding a job in a particular country or really hated living there, I have three other countries to choose from!

  There is still the small worry of getting up enough funds to also to an Ireland SWAP or the government deciding to change their age-range down to 30, but I’m thinking it’s a risk I should take so I could spend four years absorbing the varying cultures that make up the British Isles…

  If you were me, what would you do?

  ❤ SUMR

  • 2:35 pm
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