Autor: Steffen Schneider

Chapter 7: Job, different tasks and apartment trouble

Hello guys,

It’s been a while since my last Blog, I’m apologise for that, but I was kind of busy the last days and additionally I preferred to go outside to enjoy the beautiful weather instead of sitting at home and writing stuff which nobody really reads. Furthermore we have problems to access the internet in our apartment the last days. And it takes a while for me to write my Blogs anyways. Mostly every day a bit because I have other stuff to do at work… yeah, what a bridge…

Well, since my last Blog about my work placement happened a lot at my job. One of my tasks was to do a firmware update on a Dell switch and on a Cisco router (via a tftp-server I set up earlier). After that I had to configure the time zone, the summer-time and SNTP on the Cisco router, not a big challenge but I could lay a hand on Cisco devices at least… xD

Another day I had to completely disassemble a PC and assemble it with brand-new components like a Motherboard, the CPU, RAM, DVD-ROM and a power supply. After that I had to deploy that PC on some desk in the big office.

But a really ‘special’ task was to set up a notebook together with a DVB-T stick for – I bet you anticipate it – watching the Football World Cup. First I tested the functionality and searched for frequencies, after a little while I deployed it together with a beamer upstairs in some kind of meeting room. The original idea was to stream the Football games received via DVB-T to all or many PCs in the office, but any solution (I thought) I’ve found won’t work correctly at last, so it was dropped because other things are more important. Anyways, watching the games via beamer with your workmates together in a meeting room is more fun I think…

My other tasks were for example to install an Exchange Server on a virtual machine running Windows Server 2003 and install a program called Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 for doing some backup compatibility tests with the most recent version of Backup Exec. But the whole procedure was more pain than anything else because nothing worked like expected, so mostly I had to troubleshoot the different issues. However, finally it worked and I could restore a backup from version 12.5 in version 2010 on another tape.

At another time I had to install SQL Server 2005 with SQL Management Studio and programs called McAfee Endpoint Encryption and ePolicy Orchestrator for some tests again, honestly I don’t know what exactly. But same here: it won’t work, one problem after another and all the time boring troubleshooting. A complete reinstall with a new VM solved the problem at last.

Well, enough of the work for now…

We three from the Danesfort apartment had a kind of strange incident on last Monday. Actually it started 2 weeks earlier. At some beautiful morning, I was in my office yet, I got a call from Riccardo, who was still in the apartment. He told me that just a second ago were 4 strangers in our apartment standing right before the bathroom where Riccardo came from. They asked him if they can have a look at the bathroom he said. And Ric, drowsy as he was, forgot to ask who they are and what they want, he only noticed that they weren’t burglars or something like this. So it must be some official visitation…

I was really upset about that and just called the office where Kevin normally works (FGS Partnership) and talked to a secretary first and to Donal, Kevin’s boss, after that. I told them that I’m very unhappy about this incident because we had no time to prepare for the visit, therefore our whole valuables like notebooks, even money and other stuff were ‘spread’ all over the apartment plus we had no time to clean and tidy up our rooms. Honestly, I have no problems if someone wants to visit us, but we have to know that to prepare or better: somebody of us is thereby. Thereupon explained Donal that he feels bad about forgetting to give us a call, but on the other side he mentioned that he had send us a mail, but we never received one… After he had apologized that issue he promised that won’t happen anymore… Not a bit of it!

Two weeks ago on Friday Lucia, Kevin’s substitute, wrote as a mail that there would be another visitation on Tuesday at 5pm. We were happy about that massage because now we had the chance to prepare, so we wanted to clean up our apartment on Monday after work and ‘hide’ our valuables.

BUT, on Monday afternoon approximately at 4pm I got a call from another secretary from FGS: “I just want to let you know that there will be a visitation today at 5pm.” I mean what!? Rate my reaction as typical German, but c’mon give me a break, it has to do with some kind of privacy! It’s not only that they changed the appointment without telling us and that our apartment is still kind of untidy, they gave us a call merely one hour before the visitation starts. The only excuse was (again) that Donal mails us one or two days before, but we doesn’t received a mail again except the one from Lucia I told before and that the visitation can’t be changed because the housekeepers are responsible for that. What the hell is wrong with them? If we had known that a bit earlier one of us were maybe able to go to our apartment and could accompany them. That’s it, enough I thought. I asked my boss John if I could leave recently, so that I am able to catch them up hopefully. He totally gets my point and understands so I could go.

On the way home I randomly met Ric in the bus. He knows already what is going on because I called him before. After we reached our apartment we saw a younger woman and two guys in front of the main door. Certainly I asked them if they are the ones who made the visit in apartment 37 and confronted her with the situation. She explained that they had to change the appointment for some reason and that they mailed FGS about the change on Friday (!) before. That’s why we want to talk to Kevin the next days… Also she apologized for that because she won’t be amused if some strangers would ‘browse’ her apartment and underwear or other stuff, especially without letting her know, too. Besides she let us know that there will be another visitation on Thursday at 2pm with some customers who will buy this apartment maybe after we moved out. But that’s Ok because we finally had the time to prepare and to clean up right before somebody comes.

Well, that’s all for now. Sorry again that it took so long but I hope that I’m able to post another Blog the next days. It will be hard I guess based on the fact that we haven’t internet anymore and I definitely won’t buy new access for just 4 days, if that is the cause… But I can’t imagine that… We’ll see. Otherwise I’ll write the Blog and do the upload when I’m back in Germany.

Bye ^^

Chapter 6: Hiking, a fascinating tour and countless hexagons

Hey again!
Well, last time I said that I would blog something like useful information about Belfast, but I would prefer to do this next time because it happened so much last weekend, especially on Sunday the 30th May… Additionally I hadn’t enough time to finish this (a bit larger) Blog earlier, sorry for that.

Since the very beginning of our staying in Belfast Friedrich, Riccardo and I wanted to see one of the steep coasts here in Northern Ireland. Probably the most famous coast over here is the “Giant’s Causeway”, so we decided to check this out on Sunday.
Therefore we had to search in the Internet for the possibilities to do such a trip – and we found a good offer: The travel organization “McComb’s Executive Travel & Tours” offers a tour across the Antrim Coastal Route to the Giant’s Causeway with a few ‘photo stops’ and other attractions included for 20£ per person.
The tour lasts from 9.20 am to approximately 7.00 pm, thus we had to get up early on Sunday morning. At the McComb’s office we bought the tickets and waited a short time before the travel starts. The bus was totally full and our driver, he calls himself ‘Mr. Sexy’ xD, was really kind and funny. He talked the whole trip about the many sights, points of interest and about the Irish and Northern Irish history.
Our first (and short) stop was in Carrickfergus for taking photos from an old castle. At least we realized that we definitely chose the right day – the weather was awesome! While taking photos and kidding around, we were accosted by two girls from Stuttgart: Anna, who studies since two years in Dublin, and Christine, who visited her. Based on that, we found two nice travel companions… 😉

the upper part of the Shepherd's steps with Christine and Anna

Along the Coastal Route we saw so many beautiful landscapes like hills, cliffs and even beaches. The beaches here looked like the Caribbean ones, which were kind of strange and amazing together, because I never expected that in Northern Ireland. A hundreds of photos later we had another short stop at a small and nice harbor and at a viewpoint where we could see a rope bridge, of which more later…

After a few more driving minutes along the coast and through pretty villages and another three hundreds of photos later we finally reached the Giant’s Causeway. The bus parked besides a restaurant, where you could have a meal if you ordered one at the bus driver before. But we didn’t.
Now you had to choose between 2 paths down to the Giant’s Causeway: An easier, shorter and almost boring one or a longer, more exciting path within a stair part called “Shepherd’s steps”. Well the second path sounds tempting, so the girls and we three followed its call.

the hexagon shaped stones of the Giant's Causeway

The path leads us towards the cliffs with an impressive view of the Causeway below. We reached the “Shepherd’s steps” which have approximately 160 steps, it was quiet cool. On the way down we made several stops and watched at the breathtaking panorama. After the stairs we followed the path straight on, looked around again and continued going down.
Finally on the Giant’s Causeway we made a short stop and had a little lunch. While eating we had a good overview of the countless hexagon shaped stones, it was amazing! After the lunch we were going to discover the area and took thousands of photos. At this point I could get the statement from the Irish: “The Giant’s Causeway is known as the 8th world miracle.”, it was really marvelous and I begun to wonder how all these stones get their hexagonal shape. I remembered the old legend which the bus driver told us before:

„Hundreds of years ago there was a giant called Fionn who builds a bridge to walk to Scotland to fight another giant. But when he saw the Scottish giant he was afraid about his size and fled. The Scottish giant followed him. Fionn’s wife laid a blanket on him in order to cover him from the Scottish giant by pretending that Fionn is her baby. Therefore the Scottish giant was afraid, because he imagined that the father of the baby must be very huge, thus he fled in panic and destroyed the bridge in case that Fionn wants to follow him.“

(Not a real quote, but that’s approximate all as far as I remember…)

In actual fact the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway are originated millions of years ago by volcanic activities, lava flow and some eruptions.

me climbing one of the basalt columns

Some of the stone columns were approximately 8 meters high on one side (on the other side more columns like a hill), so it was a perfect chance for me to climb a bit… 😛 Regrettably the time was really barely and we had to rush with all our doings, although we had 2 hours for discover the Causeway.

Back in the bus we bought some tickets for the rope bridge (4£ per each) and the bus started to move. Our next stop was only a few minutes away in the village Bushmills. There we visited the world’s oldest licensed whiskey distillery where we could buy and taste some whiskey. Around the distillery was a strange smell in the air, I can’t describe it anymore, but it was kind of funny. ^^
For tasting the Bushmills’ Whiskey normally you had to pay, but lucky as I am (haha) I got a voucher for free Whiskey tasting from the bus driver after a short small talk. We followed him to the bar where I, and even Riccardo without a voucher, drunk a glass of Bushmills’ Whiskey. While this we talked to a trucker from New York who also took part on the trip to the Giant’s Causeway.
After our little Whiskey session we staggered… uhm… walked back to the bus and drove to the last attraction: The rope bridge. On our way to the bridge we had another two short photo stops at an old castle ruin (the bus driver called it one of the most romantic places in Northern Ireland) and at a cliff near a very long and beautiful beach.

I am the posing one in the middle ^^

After we arrived we hiked along the cliffs and I was amazed of the view below: The water was like you would normally expect from the Caribbean – crystal clear and cyan with bright sand below and no seaweed (like almost everywhere today). That fits the nearly cloudless sky and the warm air temperature perfect. Just before the rope bridge was a queue so we had to wait as well, but it wasn’t too long anyways. Finally it’s our turn. We went down a little stair and entered the bridge. The way like the bridge waggled and swung was kind of funny. You had a nice view down between the gaps, by the way… On the other side, there was only a small (but high) island, we enjoyed the nice view and took another 3700 photos. You could see the Scottish coast from there very clear. After a few minutes our time was running out again, so we had to return to the bus.

From now on we drove straight through the country in the direction of Belfast. Time to relax and digest the whole exciting day, but only when you are able to ignore the always-talking Mr. Sexy (headphones are very useful in this case :P)…

We arrived in Belfast shortly after 8 pm, and the bus driver says that this was his longest tour since years. The bus stopped at several points and we had to say goodbye to the girls. We get off at another stop and went home.
Later this evening Friedrich and I went to the Bot in order to relax a bit, but against our expectations it was totally full of people – I’ve never seen such a full pub! No way to relax, but it was fun anyways. All of the girls there were responding well to the Euro vision Song Contest winner Lena, as they heard that we are from Germany. Also we met a crazy English guy, but never mind… xD

Just one more thing: I strongly can recommend this (or a similar) trip to you, it is absolutely a good investment! And prepare to take millions of photos!

Wow, I never thought that I’ll write such a novel… Oo
I hope my grammar is not that bad like Master Yoda’s… xD

Chapter 5: Prohibition, visitors from far away and perfect weather

Hi everybody!
Sorry for being late this time. I simply can’t imagine that already another week has passed… Also I had to apologize if my sentences are sporadically a little bit weird because yesterday I forgot to do some push-ups, so I’ll do it while blogging. ^^

Well, some bad news at first: Actually we are supposed to write about our work placements, but on Friday last week I had to sign a written agreement about preserving the company secret. Nevertheless I’ll post something on my own risk – no risk, no fun! *lol* No, actually I think it is ok as long as it relates to my blog. 😉

Among others my tasks last week were to update a Dell switch and a Cisco router with the latest firmware and to configure SNTP, the time zone and the summer-time on the Cisco router. And in order to update the router I had to create a TFTP-Server (with some Freeware program) so that I was able to upload the new Cisco IOS. Furthermore I copied 2 Backup-files, created VMs of them and integrated them into a Test-Network, also I upgraded another ESX-Server with 4GB RAM.
Today I started to reinstall a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. In the process of that several (annoying) problems and errors occurred – I’ll don’t want to list them all, but it took way longer than normal to start the installation process at last (after installing ‚.Net Framework‘, ‚MSPowerShell‘ and a BIOS update for example). Tomorrow I have to finish the installation and configure the Exchange Server…

the Botanic Garden

Now for something completely different. On Sunday, where the weather was really beautiful warm and sunny, I received lady visitors from Germany: A former female superior from the German armed forces (Sandy) with another girl which I don’t know before (Mary). Mainly they came in order to visit a Rihanna concert in the ‘Odyssey Arena Belfast’ and to see me. 😛

They also took a flight from Berlin to Dublin and a bus to Belfast like we did by the way. So I went into the city to pick them up, but they’d left the bus somewhere else than us so it was hard to find them… After a short walk through the city I led them to their hotel and went to the ‘Botanic Garden’ to meet Riccardo and Friedrich in order to relax a bit in the sun. On Monday night I met with the two girls, after they were back from the concert, at the Botanic Inn to drink some beer and talk with Sandy about the good old times at the armed forces. We had a lot of fun at that, oh yeah… xD They left Belfast yet this night with the bus to Dublin because their flight to Berlin was about 7 or 8 o’clock on Tuesday morning.

Well, I’m a bit exhausted now and I’m getting very tired too. I think I’ll post something like general facts (good-to-know-stuff, you know) about Belfast next time… maybe…, we’ll see… 😉

Catch ya later!

Chapter 4: Work, a lot of new and a bloody afternoon

Hey guys!
Today I’ll tell you something about my work. The company I work for from now on is called ‘Lagan Technologies Ltd.’, or just ‘Lagan’, which supports hardware, maintains server and develops software solutions for the British and the American government.

the Lagan building

Before I get there on my first day at Monday I met Kevin at his office, together with Oliver who works in another division at Lagan, because he wanted to drive us to the company and to introduce us to our future bosses.
Finally at Lagan, which lies in the north of Belfast nearby the airport, we stepped in the foyer and waited a minute before Oliver and I were introduced to Oliver’s boss, which name I already forgot. He shows us the office area, the kitchen and introduced us to some of the employees.
After that he brought me to my boss John and to Gary, very kind persons by the way. Then John showed me my workplace and the server room and explained me a lot for this purpose.

my workplace

My first task was to set up two ESX-Servers running on Linux and to configure them with another server remotely (with ‘vSphere’) for the purpose of creating virtual machines on the ESX-Servers. Than I had to make many ISO-Files from different operating systems like ‘Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise x64’ or ‘CentOS 5.5 x64’. After that I virtualized these operating systems and did many, many updates, configured for example the ‘Microsoft Internet Explorer Enhanced Security’ and the ‘Shutdown Event Tracker’. I did this to create from the fully updated and operational VM’s templates. I’m still working on this task.
Besides I changed the IP address of each ESX-Server in Linux and I upgraded one of these with memory up to 24GB RAM, that was the first time ever I touched server hardware on my own and it is – what a miracle – not broken or exploded (Leo!). xD …never mind…

Normally I would end this Blog for now, but today something horrible happened. After work I met with Friedrich in front of the City Centre because we wanted to drive with one of his workmates, Matt, to a huge TESCO for some daily shopping. Along the way to Matt’s car we passed a bus stop where an older lady was waiting on a bench. Nearby was standing a man with a Bullterrier on a leash. All around also were many people. So far to the initial situation.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the Bullterrier was attacking the older lady, bit her above the knee and don’t let go! The owner of the dog swooped down on it without hesitation and tried to get his dog off from the woman. All people around looked shocked to the incident and nobody had the guts to interfere. The older lady stops to scream early, maybe the shock, so that the only thing you could hear were things like “Oh my god!” from the people around. Very creepy moment!
With bad feelings Friedrich and I were walking towards the woman to help her somehow, but before we reached her, the owner of the Bullterrier finally made it to open the dog’s mouth and pull him back.
Somebody of the people around already called an ambulance and a fierce discussion starts with the owner of the dog. At this point Friedrich, Matt and I were leaving this place – aghast at this shocking 10 minutes…

Well, so far, stay tuned and a last hint: Beware of Bullterriers (or other dogs), especially without a muzzle!

Chapter 3: Nature, the smell of BBQ and hazardous free-climbing

Hello people!
What to do at the ‘holy’ Sunday? According to the sunny weather the question were quite fast answered. Since the very beginning of our arrival in Belfast we wanted to climb one of the mountains nearby Belfast – so it was settled. We took all the things we could need on this journey, above all the camera, and walked (or better hiked) straight through the city towards the approximately 7 miles in the north distant ‘Cave-Hill’.

Already at the foot of the mountain I was impressed about the beautiful view of the nature. On the way up we took a lot of photos and were more amazed of the sight the more we came higher. We saw many guys driving up and down the hill on mountain bikes, hardly surprising because most of the paths and trails seemed to be made for biking.

probably the highest point

Finally on the top of the Cave-Hill (approximately 350m) we all got stunned by the amazing clear and wide sight above Belfast with its harbour, the surrounding land, the distant mountains and even narrow the coast of Scotland(look at the panorama-picture from Friedrich)! As a result of that the view reminds me a bit of the sight while gliding. 😀 After a few minutes we discovered something funny: On a lower laid peak, not far from us, sat a single guy having a BBQ, such epic funny scene!

view from the abyss of the highest point to the BBQ-Guy

After a couple of minutes and a hundreds of photos later we decided to go down. About the same time, maybe a bit earlier, rain clouds appeared at the horizon, by the way. Half way down we discovered two small caves… Wait a sec… Yay, that’s why it’s called ‘Cave-Hill’! xD Whatever… One of the caves was about 30m high on the crag and the other maybe about 4-5m. We wanted to begin in a small way, so we climbed into the lower one, nevertheless it was quiet tough because we all had the wrong footwear thus we had barely grip. At the same time it starts to rain, to our disadvantage because the rocks getting even more slippy. After a short break in the cave, the rain is still falling, we decided to climb back down at last. That was really hard and dangerous at once but the adrenaline was soaring, a very exciting moment!

exploring the 'mysterious' cave

Finally we left the mountain behind and we came across a nice castle somewhere in the woods. The door of the fence was closed, so we can’t get very close to it. Because we were quiet exhausted we took the bus to Belfast City Centre but walked the remaining way to our apartment anyways.
All things considered it was a very cool, fascinating and exciting day so that I just can recommend it to you to do similar on any sunny weekend, if you interested in nature and adventures! 😉

Next time, maybe tomorrow, I’ll tell you something about my workplace and I hope I can post pictures of it, too.

See you then!

Chapter 2: Nightlife, unfamiliar frankness and alcohol

Hi folks!
On Thursday we’d got a call from our comrades of the 5 men apartment (they haven’t internet yet, poor guys…) to come to a pub called “The Botanic Inn”. Luckily this pub is not very far away from our apartment, only 10-15 minutes by foot, so Riccardo and I decided to go there. Friedrich prefers to stay in the apartment because he had an interview on Friday.
On our way to the pub we saw a house spotlighted by black light, that looks really cool but we didn’t took a photo, shame on us but maybe we take one next time… 😉

Finally in the Botanic Inn the first thing I noticed was the strong smell of beer and the fact that most of the people were already drunk. We found the others easily and after a short small talk and introduction how the things will work in the pub and with the girls in there, we bought our first drink: a typical Irish Cider (really delicious by the way). The price was around 3.20 pounds a pint I guess.
It took only a few minutes and we were introduced to some native guys the others met there earlier. They are friendly and frankly in fact, a little too intrusive but this was maybe the alcohol… xD Speaking of alcohol: I’ve never seen so many glasses falling to the ground, break into pieces and alcohol spilled all over somebody’s lap. That was kind of weird because nobody cares.
Anyways, the music there was a mixture of Rock’n’Roll, party music and other stuff I don’t know. Later this evening there was a band playing live-music. Not my kind of music, but the girls compensate this point. They are really nice and good-tempered (not to mention that most of them are epic hot dressed… whooohoooo!!!) so you can have easy conversations with them, especially when you tell them that you’re from Germany 😉 …but this goes for everybody else too. Otherwise a very few people confronts you with the old, typical German stereotype (you know, the Hitler and Nazi stuff), but they always said that is funny here… oO

Well folks, I still could tell you so much about this evening, for example that a homosexual guy was trying to pick up Konstantin (epic funny moment) or that two cute girls were for some reason extremely in love with my eyeglasses, so that they always wanted to wear it… But I think you experienced similar like this. That was a really great evening, it was a lot of fun, we even met an older guy from Germany who is living in Belfast since 2 years. Today we want to go to the “Botanic Inn” again… 😀

Yesterday Friedrich, Riccardo and I met us with Sebastian, David and Kevin and we talked about our upcoming workplaces. My work starts next Monday, so I will tell you about that when the time is right.

I think I’ll post a picture of my Thursday evening in the pub soon…
(And I hope my words are right resp. the text is readable. lol)

See you next time!

Chapter 1: Arrival, surprise and exploring Belfast

Hello guys!

At first I have to apologize for my 0815-english, but I think it is readable… ^^

Well, I think I should start with a short explanation why I’m blogging and why about Belfast.
One part of my apprenticeship is a 8 weeks lasting internship in a foreign country, in my case it is Northern Ireland, more exact in the city of Belfast. During this time all of the internship participants (we were divided to Dublin, Belfast and Barcelona) had to blog their experiences at work and free time in another portal and we had to do this in english language. Therefore, in order to prevent that nearly nobody reads my blog (who reads blogs anyway? xD) and my work is for nothing, I’ll post it here too… I’ll try to keep this as interesting as possible, promise! ^^

Yesterday started our adventurous journey to Belfast in Northern Ireland. I was so excited about the flight – I’m freaking LOVE to fly!!! I’m afraid that the flight was too short! Then, in Dublin, we took the bus to Belfast. On the road I saw many really beautiful landscapes with all its mountains and green meadows. Coming along with all the blooming cherry trees, the partly clouded sky and the school uniform wearing pupils it reminds me a bit of Japan. xD

Finally in Belfast we met our contact person Kevin Shine and we moved into our houses/apartments were we split into three groups. Friedrich, Riccardo and I had chosen the three men apartment and it IS awesome in fact! Here it comes: The apartment has 2 bedrooms with large beds, 2 little sweet balconies, 2 nice bathrooms – one with a shower and one with a bathtub – and an epic kitchen. Some of the numerous mirrors and windows are dirty but that are peanuts compared to the fact that we have a great chimney in the living room and a washing machine and a dishwasher in the kitchen, not to mention the breathtaking view of the city of Belfast and the mountains on the horizon from one of the balconies. Based on these facts, the whole situation reminds of a holiday trip by now.
Later this evening we walked around the area and did our first buying. After this we had a meal and watched a funny movie called „Sexdrive“.

The next morning starts with a light breakfast. Afterwards we decided to explore the city and go on a few more errands like mobile phone cards and an UMTS-Stick. After a relaxed walk through the city and wondering glances of the numerous sights, especially the pretty girls (and they ARE sights in fact! xD), we found the shops where we can get the phone cards and the UMTS-Stick. The weather, against all expectations, was pretty nice in the afternoon by the way.

Back in our apartment we configured a small ad-hoc network with the UMTS-Stick. In the evening we cooked a meal (pork escalope with mixed vegetables and pasta), relaxed a bit in front of the chimney and finally we wrote the blog. Now it is time to go to bed at last.

the self-timer was too short timed xD

… To be continued…