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!

Weekend @ Belfast

Hi there,

Finally, I god rid of my cold.Yeeehaa….

The spanish guys are so fuc….. funny. Their English is really bad, but they use their own words. For example:

the fridge is -> the cold box,

the freezer is -> the very cold box,

the oven is -> the hot box

and the kitchen units are called -> individual food box

Yesterday they all got drunk and started to get crazy. One of them wanted to take a shower and, I don’t know why, the others tried to avoid that. During this time they destroyed a lamp and the door of the bathroom. Sebastian and I were downstairs in the livingroom and we heard just a lot of very loud „BANGS“. So actually, we do not really know, what has happened^^.

After a lot of beers we decided to go to a Pub, I cannot remember the name, but it was really cool there. The music was very loud that if I wanted to talk to someone I had to leave the Pub and have a Cigarette. Outside, I met about 20 different people from all over the world. I got used to speak english with an american accent, so that one irish girl actually thought that I came from America^^. I found out that it is really easy to find someone to talk to. All of the people here are very friendly and appreciate that I’m trying to talk in their language.

Now, I want to go to a Pub called „Botanic In“ to watch the final of the FA-Cup. I hope that the beer is not to expensive there.

When I’m back, I’m gonna have to tell some more funny stories of the spanish guys :). I don’t know whats going on in their heads.

….

bye

David

Hangover…

Moin everyone,

I’m tiered…the whole week was very exausting. Working from 9am to 18pm wasn’t fun but I managed to change it to 8.30am to 17.30pm, not much better but at least a bit. The Website I’m building has to be ready by friday next week. I don’t really know if my boss knows that I’m here for two month.. oh man. Actually everything is spinning while I’m sitting on the couch. Yesterday we where in a club called „POT“ or „POD“ ? I don’t know anymore but it was fun, when your drunk the english is floating and we talked to more people in one night than the whole last week before.

3 Coronas for 10 Euro .. fuuuuuu … but somehow I got enough of it to get a drunk, finally. Anyway, Maik is still sleeping and Lee and I are gonna get into town now, to buy suits and do some sightseeing, naww .. I need a bank, Irland is so expesive. We don’t even have something for breakfirst. Well going now…

cya, Tim.

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



Do you want to start your own business?

Day 03 – 12/05/2010

If your answer is yes, then you have missed a good seminar about: „How to start your own business“ organized by the Africa Centre for Africans and all other people who were interested.

One guy talked about how he started his business. He owns a company which refuels motor-lorries while the driver is not allowed to drive because of his/her idle times which he/she has to keep. So they have motor-lorries, too, and drive to the motor-lorry, which have to be refueld.

After my worktime I went to DUNNES to purchase some food for me. It is difficult to find well-known german products there, e.g. the german „Quark“ :). I asked many people but nobody know what it is, they only know Sour Scream and Creme Fraiche.

In the evening I made me a pizza and watched the final of the Europe League.

Hm………….. I do not know………. Bye..^^

Day 3 and 4

Hi folks,

on the third day Leo an I had our first workday in Dublin at Web Reservation International Ltd.

This concern supervise and develop a market-leading website by the name of hostelworld.com.

Our task for this day was, testing the website and their functions in a test environment.

After that we made a quiet evening, because we must worked till 5.30 pm.

Today we got a new task at work… we must copy strings in a table, to translate the newest version of the website.

In the evening we were for the very first time  in a pub and drunk some beers with our colleagues of the other apartments.

This was nice a experience for me…

I’ve got to leave now, because I’m very tired.

Temple Bar – Dublin

Curry-Chicken

Hi guys,
The highlight of the day was to cook for my housemates Steffen and Riccardo. First I went with Steffen together to the supermarket to get some foot for cooking. Finally there was curry-chicken with rise on our plates.
Unhappily I got a cold like David. Since the workshop last weekend my sore throat wents to a real cold. So, the last two day I did everything to become healthy. Even I took a bath and now I will go to bed, because tomorrow there is my jobinterview. I am very nervous and I hope everything will be allright. Well, tomorrow I will give informations about the progress of the job interview.
Greetz Friedrich

Got a Cold :(

Hi,

Thanks to the rainy weather on tuesday I got a cold.  On Wednesday I stayed in bed all evening trying to get better. Hopefully I am going to be ok today. I am drinking a lot of tea (not so difficult to find tea in UK^^) spending my time on writing the blog, answering emails etc. If my recovery is going on well I will get into the City to buy a phone card and something to eat, maybe some drugs…

Anyway, my Job Interview that occured on Wednesday, was a great success. The director of Nitec was impressed by my language skills. Unfortunately he did not have my CV so I had to tell him my whole working history. But it seemed that the interview proceeded very well and I am looking forward to beginning my practical training at Nitec on monday. If you want to know about the company you can visit their website at https://www.nitec.com/ .

So that’s it for now. Maybe I can tell you something more interesting tomorrow, because probably, I’m staying in bed today.

see you

David

First work day

Hello again everyone,

Yesterday Chris, my roommate at Herberton Apartments and I had our last day off. So we went shopping in the city centre. After three hours of walking (which seemed to be days) and searching we finally turned left into a random street 😉 and found the Ilac Shopping Centre. Inside was a shop in which Chris and Alex, another colleague of us, residing at Lad Lane Apartments, both found what they were looking for. Afterwards Alex left, Chris and I met with Ben and Flo, the rest of our apartment and together we went on to buy some more stuff for our apartment.

Today Chris and I had to be at our company at 9:30 am for our first working day at Web Reservations International. We got shown around first and then we set up our computers and afterwards we got an introduction into the new page that went online this monday. Next we had to test the functions of the site ourselfs and thereafter we had to keep ourselfs busy for quite a while. Possibly we will get our real task tomorrow. (hopefully…)

And that was about it for today, hopefully I can write something more interesting in the upcoming days. (please! please! please!)

Groundhopping Part I

May some of you know, I am a football fanatic! It is my duty to visit as many football grounds as possible.

I really like these britsh football stadiums. There are five teams located in Belfast: Linfield FC, Glentoran FC, Cliftonville FC, Crusaders FC and Donegal Celtic FC.

Unfortunatly all there grounds are scattered to the four winds and therefore I could only visit one stadium today. I choose the Windsor Park, home of Linfield FC.

Logo of LFC

Linfield FC is the most successfull team in Northern Irish Football by wining the nationale league title 49 times. Linfield’s home ground is Windsor Park, which is located in south Belfast.

Unfortunalty the season in northern irland is all over and I hoped this will not deter me from getting inside. Of course it did not 😉  So I can show you some pictures:

Way to Windsor Park
Inside the ground
Windsor Park
Windsor Park

It was an awesome atmosphere even without any fans. I really like it and hope to watch some matches in Irland as soon as possible.

Best regards to my guys in Dublin and Belfast 😉 Pictures of other grounds will follow! If you are interested in higher quality and more pictures write me a mail!

PS: Sorry for being late, watching the Europe League – Finale between Fulham and Atlético Madrid with my spanish housemates 🙂