Kategorie: Privat

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…

Exciting first day in Dublin

Hello everyone,

I guess you have read totally boring and annoying blogs already. I hope my blog will be even worse. 😉 For everyone who wants to know what a blog is, it is a contraction of the term ‚web log.‘ click this link for further (totally unuseful) information 😉

So why am I writing a blog? You got to know that I am an apprentice at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. I am trained for being an IT specalist for application development. I started my training last year in october and will hopefully finish it in the middle of next year. For more information about the Charité and the other accompanying firms that educate me and my other apprentices click here

This year my colleagues and I are fortunate enough to be able to complete a two month internship in irish companies. I hope to learn alot about the irish way of working, thinking and living and hope to improve my english skills alot as well. This weekend we had a preparatory course which was good. I liked what we learned and the location as well but the timing and planning of the course were a bit off. But nevertheless it was quite useful. I learned alot about manoeuvring through difficult situations, e.g. how to politely ask for names again.

Today was the day of our arrival in Ireland. We started at 11:30am from Schönefeld Airport in Berlin and landed in Dublin at about 12:50pm on Dublin Airport. The first thing we noticed was that our clocks gained. So rather than watching out for some pretty girls, my first action in Ireland was to adjust my watch. Then almost half of our group of trainees left Dublin and headed to Belfast by bus, whereas forteen of us stayed here and were picked up at the airport by a driver send from the Swan Training Institute. He drove half of us to the Ladlane Apartements and the other half, including myself to the Herberton Appartements.

Our apartement is really nice, we have two bedrooms with two beds each, two bathrooms, a smaller and a bigger one, a kitchen with a dishwasher and a washing machine and a living room with a tv. Ah… and we have a balcony, a fitness center across the street, including an indoor swimming pool, sauna and a soccerfield nearbye. Did I mention my evil and mean side yet? HAR HAR

My Group and I decided to walk to the Swan Training Institute for our first appointment there. We wanted to walk so we could see something of Dublin, but the area we had to pass through wasn’t the finest. Finally we arrived there safely (thank god) 😉 and got our instructions from our advisor. Afterwards we went to one of the next of the perceived one quadrillion o2 shops in Dublin right across the street and bought prepaid cards and topped them up with 20€ so that we can sms and telephone among us for free.

After we did that, we went to a shopping hall the clerk at o2s recommended to us and that way we got our first daily routine handled too. Thereby we lost one of our roommates but we were lucky to find him safe and sound at our apartement. On our way back we experienced something very interesting… but see for yourself.

That was it for today, hopefully tommorows text will be (a lot ) shorter… or longer… just to torture you… 😉

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