Well it’s our last day here in Dublin and tomorrow our flight to Berlin goes at 7.30am. I am looking forward to see my friends and family even though I actually don’t really want to leave Ireland right now. I hope to come back here sometime in the near future. I had a really great time here and I am very thankful for the opportunity. Thanks to everyone supporting and organizing this trip.
Until tomorrow,
Lionel
Friday evening we had a quite big party at a friend’s flat, mainly to say goodbye to all of them because it’s our last weekend. It had been a very nice evening.
On Saturday there was a big festival in Dublin: the “Gay Pride”, as you can imagine there where hundreds of people in the city center. I had a few nice conversations and meet even some straight girls. Later that evening some friends from Belfast joined us. I knew them from the last weekend when we have been to Belfast.
On Sunday I went to the Jameson Old Distillery with my friends from Belfast. The Guided Tour was quite interesting but quite expensive.
Afterwards we watched the match Germany – England. There have been surprisingly many Germans and German supporters. You could hear there were less supporters for the English team when they shoot there first goal.
Afterwards we went to the beach in Malahide. There were a lot of people enjoying the good weather and Tim and I joined some friends to relax there. I wanted to try the temperature of the water so got into the water with my feet when suddenly a friend push me so that I dropped into the water and my pants was completely wet. Of course I wanted my revenge so I took her and jumped into the water while carrying here. The water was surprisingly warm. Here you can see the result:
Maybe it was not the best idea because I couldn’t change my pants for a couple of hours.
Anyway see you soon,
Lionel
I am sorry for getting out blogs so seldom. There is just not enough time to write.
By now you know that I like to put as many videos and pictures in my blog as possible, that is one reason why it takes so long for me to finish each blog. Mainly because our internet connection works only sometimes so it can take some days to upload a single video.
As promised in my last blog here are pictures and videos from Brazilians win at the pub called Woolshed.
Sadly I have been ill again last week. But Tim and I went to Belfast anyway because we have planned the trip already two or three weeks ago. At Friday night I met a lot of friendly people at Sebastian’s and David’s place. The Next Day we went to the Giants Causeway and on Sunday we had a walk through the city before going back to Dublin. Here are some pictures of our trip.
Unfortunately it’s our last weekend here in Dublin so it’s time to say good-bye to all the people we meet here and maybe have a last beer with them. I am looking forward to get back to Berlin for two reasons: I don’t want to live in this apartment anymore and I don’t want to work at my company anymore. If I had a better job and accommodation I would strongly consider staying here for some more months. Dublin feels like home to me by now.
At last here are some more pictures I wanted to share in my lasts blogs but there was not enough web space available at that time.
Ok actually I wanted to share more pictures with you but I don’t want to use all of our webspace that is left.
Later,
Lionel
Well I am going to tell you a little bit about my company.
In my company there are working a lot of friendly people, most of them very young. There are about 70 employees; six of them are interns, including me. As I told you in my last blogs I have to work hard and the work is pretty boring by now. The first weeks have been quite alright but since yesterday it don’t want to work there anymore. Ok whatever, about two weeks after my first day a friend told me that they fired a college of him. She was replaced by, guess what… an intern. Last week a second girl was fired and today; what a surprise my friend got fired, too!!! So, who is next? Hopefully no one of course but still the atmosphere in the company is weird somehow. I will be very glad when my time at this company is over. I think this will be my last blog about work and the company. By the way the name of my company: chasetravel.ie.
Still I have a really great time here in Dublin. I just got home from a pub where I celebrated Brazil’s victory, together with my Brazilian friends. Pictures and videos will follow in my next blog.
Have a great time,
Lionel
Today I stayed at home because I feel sick. I don’t know if I am going to work tomorrow but at last I got some time to write another blog.
If you wonder why I don’t write much about my work instead more about going out and you think that these guys are actually in Ireland to work, you got a point. Sadly my work is really boring at the time so there is just nothing to tell you about. I am really disappointed from the choice of the “Swaninstitute” to put me in this company. The first two weeks in the company were quite interesting because I got to do some IT related tasks for example writing some scripts or SQL queries. But since my direct superior is on holidays for almost two weeks now, I only build Excel tables. Yeah that’s basically it. You see there is not much to tell about work. Still I met a lot of young people at work; some of them are good friends by now. So it’s easier for me to stay at the company. Furthermore I don’t speak English at work, just at the lunch break and when I am on my way to/from work. I still most of the time speak English at the pubs. I keep in mind that you might be interested and I will tell you if I got to do some interesting stuff to do but till that day I will keep up telling you about the nightlife and the City of Dublin.
Last week Mr. Bavar paid a visit to Ireland. He visited some of my colleagues including me at the companies on Thursday and went to Belfast on Friday. Friday in the evening we went out to grab some beer at the pub located in the hotel of Mr. Bavar “Arlington Hotel”. There even was a Live Band playing at the pub. Afterwards we met some colleagues of Tim and we went to the pub “Sweeneys” and later to “The Purity Kitchen”. On Saturday Tim and I went to the beach at Howth again to relax at the beach for some time. In the late evening we went to a rock bar “Fibbers”. We just heard the last two songs from a band playing live in the pub but fortunately they got a dance floor. So there was no reason to go home. We even got invited for a dance by some girls. On Sunday two friends of mine from Berlin visited us here in Dublin for a couple of days. So we did some Sightseeing on Sunday and Monday. On Monday there was Holiday for Everyone in Ireland and we got the chance to visit the Shakespeare festival. In the evening on Sunday we were invited to a home party from a friend of mine and on Monday we went to the Porterhouse (the Folk one). I already told you about the Porterhouse in another blog of mine. All in all we had a great weekend. Here are some pictures:
Arlington Hotel Friday Evenig with Mr. Bavar
The Porterhouse
Live Band @ Porterhouse
Shakespeare Festival
On Tuesday evening I went to a concert from “Rage Against The Machine”. Sadly we just had seated places because the standing tickets were sold out. Here some pictures and video of the last song. The sound quality is really, really bad. Sorry for that. By the Way the concert hall is called the O² Arena, like the one in Berlin.
Rage Against The Machine
I took me about three days to upload the video, thats why the blog is late again.
See you later,
Lionel
This blog was supposed to be online yesterday but our internet connection was down a couple of hours. That’s why I am late again.
Third Week
So today is our relaxed Day, we decided to stay at home in the evening so got some time to write another blog.
This Tuesday we went to a pub/club called “Diceys Garden” a second time. There are two dance floors. One is outside in the “Garden” and another inside. Every Tuesday a band is playing on the floor inside, unfortunately the same band every week and the same songs, too. That’s why I probably will not go there again but I really recommend going there at least one time.
On Wednesday we just played a round of billiard which is really expensive I think. By now we found two billiard saloons here in Dublin. At the cheaper one you pay 1€ for 6 minutes to play. That’s why we just play for half an hour.
On Thursday evening Tim and I have been to “Le Cirk” with some Brazilian people I told you about. I got the picture from the Brazilian BBQ now. Here it is.
At the pub some Bands were playing Live Music. They seemed to be very young but still they played very good.
Friday evening after being on a party we went to a pub with a bunch of young people we meet on the street. After leaving the pub we had to walk home in the rain. Thats only the second time since we arrived here in Dublin that I got wet from the rain. I hope at Berlin there is nice weather too?
Saturday afternoon we went to a game of football. David and Sebastian were visiting us that day. I won’t talk about the game much because I think Sebastian is the right man for doing that. David however mentioned the tiny entrance to the Stadium in his blog and here is a picture I took. I even had to go sideways to get through.
In the evening we went to the pub “Le Cirk” again, but this time it was quite boring. We went there to early the pub was quite empty. So we decided to go to Buskers a pub/club because some musicians where playing live music. Sadly they stopped five minutes after we entered the pub. Still we had a great time. Sometime after midnight David and Sebastian left to get back to Belfast. Afterwards we went to one of the two Porterhouses in Dublin. Actually it is a pub but like most pubs there is a dance floor and most of the people were dancing. At the Porterhouse they sell a beer called “Porterhouse Red” which is brewed by the Porterhouse itself. It’s similar to Guinness and Smithwicks and for my taste somewhere between, it’s a pretty good one. We meet some Spanish/Portuguese/Brazilian friends at the pub and had a good time until the Pub closed sometime around 3am.
There is another picture from the one time Tim and I went to the beach I wanted to share with you. When you see it you wouldn’t believe that I took this picture in Ireland rather than Spain or another Mediterranean country. That’s what it felt like to be on the beach.
Today we went to the Soul festival picnic at a park near our apartment. There were basically some live bands playing. I took some videos and want to share the Band called “The Barley Mob” with you.
Learning French, teaching German
Well I am hanging around a lot of French, Italian and Spanish people. Most of them at least know some German words. For example I want to ride the autobahn sometime, a Japanese guy told me. Of course you have to teach the German word for cheers… Prost not Bost, which by the way is: Kampai in Japanese. So besides learning some Japanese I improve my French too. By the time I am able to have a simple conversation in French, while at first I had difficulties to think of a lot of French words.
I read through the newspaper some morning last week and stumble across the word creation über-wealthy in the newspaper. It was an article about some rich people. Thought that was quiet funny.
Money
As David mention in his blog Dublin is really expensive.
For a pint of beer you got to pay 4€ if you find a cheap pub. Often you will pay 4.50€ to 5.50€ for one pint. (Diceys 2€ for one pint each Tue – 5€ entrance)
We buy all our food at Tesco, the cheapest supermarket but sill expensive. By now we actually just ate at home to save some money. A Cheeseburger is about 1.70€ at Mc D and BK.
Cloths however are quite cheap especially at Pennys where I got a sweatshirt for about 15€ and some shirts for 11€ each.
A one way ticket for the bus is about 1.15€ to get to the city center. If you want to go further you have to buy up to 2.20€. Gladly I got a monthly ticket from our funding.
In the end it is quite expensive to go out in the evening and as David said, but the best opportunity to speak English is when you go out somewhere. At work I don’t get the chance to speak English very often because everyone is just working including me. Still I used my time and money here very well by now.
Later,
Lionel
Ok one short update before going to bed. This weekend was English only again. We went to a party at Friday and afterwards to some clubs. I had a really great time to meet people and talk to them about so many things. Sadly many people went away this weekend and I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. Anyway on Saturday we had a BBQ on the roof of a friend’s flat. The weather here is just great, my only problem at the moment is that I took everything to Dublin except a short pants. I would really need them. One more reason for shopping the next days.
Today Tim and I went to the beach at Howth. The weather was still pretty good and a lot of people where swimming in the water. Next time I take a towel with me so that I can jump in the sea one time. Here is a picture of a seal we saw at the harbor of Howth.
So that has got to be enough for now, sorry for the short blogs but I am at home very seldom. That is why there is not much time left for the blogs.
Btw the signs on the ground “Look Right” and “Look Left” really helped my through the days until I saw this one.
Would you go?
Greetings,
Lionel
Sorry for being late, this blog should already have been online yesterday but with our internet connection it took me ages to upload the videos.
Well, I already told you about the home party where I was invited. There I met some people and one of them invited me to his BBQ on Saturday afternoon. I took my roommate Tim with me and we went there with him and a French colleague of mine. At the BBQ, which was a Brazilian one, we met a lot of people mainly Brazilians but some South Korean and Irish people too. Tim already told very detailed about it in his blog which I got to recommend to you: “and Suddenly! Brasilians everywere!”. On Sunday we went out for a walk through the city.
Another picture from inside the temple bar yesterday and one from the River on our way home at Saturday night. Sadly I did not make any photographs from the BBQ but I asked the other people to send me their pictures. So maybe there is a BBQ update coming the next days.
See you later,
Lionel
Hey Guys,
The last two days of work have been great. I don’t work with networks or anything I usually do. Most tasks are application management. I took me some time to get started, but at the end it was fun. My colleagues are very helpful too. Anyway, to the interesting stuff now.
On Thursday we have been to the temple bar in the city center of Dublin. I was quite funny, despite the touristic factor. I walk down the street and I have seen about 5 to 10 German people.
But in the end we went to “The Old Dubliner”. We all had a great time.
Yesterday I have been invited to a house party of a colleague. He just moved in at his flat. There I have met people from Spain, France, Japan, Italy and some more countries. It was a lot of fun talking to the guys. Ok enough for now I have to go to the city, see some stuff and maybe go shopping.
See you later,
Lionel
Hi girls ’n boys,
Work
Second day in Dublin and I already had to work. That was yesterday and it was pretty exhausting. It takes me one hour to get to work and another to get back. The work I had to do by now, was quite boring. I hope this will change over time. I will keep you updated on this. The company basically has two offices for 20 to 30 people each. Nevertheless it was relatively quiet.
Old Habits
Today I got hit by a car. Ok, not really, but in the past days there have been some situations where I did not expect the car to come from this side of the road. I really have to adapt to that.
Apartments
I think you read enough about our apartment from my roommates (especially from Maik). Sadly I have to agree with him on this one. Luckily our floor is almost dried.
I hope you all have a great time.
Greetz,
Lionel