Autor: Oliver Gruse

Yesterday, visitors from Berlin, Mr. Bavar and Mrs. Neumann, came to see Belfast. Kevin Shine, our local advisor from RSM Tennon, arranged for them to visit each of us in our work placements and afterwards to see our apartment, the MEWS house at Hardcastle Street. The apartment is first time part of this training program, so our visitors wanted to receive an impression how the conveniences are. They were impressed and Mr. Bavar said that he would choose this apartment if he had to go to Belfast for two month. They took a few photos and afterwards we went to a pub called “Filthy MacNasty’s”, Mrs. Neumann really liked this location. We had a few nice conversations and a lot of fun, it felt like they brought a piece of home with them.

But unfortunately we were short of time and the visitors had to drive back to Dublin. René, Tim and me brought them to rail station and there we bid good bye.

I have a very skill improving Project at ECIT. I have to implement a site to site VPN between a Cisco 2911 router and Ubuntu server. Last week I accomplished the standard router configuration, the VPN-Server configuration on the Cisco router and I installed Ubuntu on the server. I am really looking forward to get the VPN working. It makes a lot of fun to work as CCNA with such nice equipment. Richards calls me “Mr. Cisco” because I am the only person at ECIT who is CCNA and I have to show Jonathan (student, doing his work experience at ECIT) few things about Cisco. I really enjoy work like this.

Thursday my girlfriend came to Belfast to visit me.  I was nervous the whole week before  and I was  really looking forward. Unfortunately I had to work on Thursday and Friday, but we had the whole weekend. She cooked a very tasty chines launch for me and the guys. Afterwards I showed her a peace of the city, after that we had a relaxing night. Next day we visit a few sights and she came with us to see Titanic Belfast. It was so wonderful to have her in Belfast, it was boosting morale and I never will forget these wonderful times we had here in Belfast.

Yesterday we went to Titanic Belfast to see the impressive architecture of this building and the colorful history of Titanic.

Our expectations where unfortunately disappointed. It is a big exhibition with nice replicas of a few cabins, a lot of posters with text on it.They were also exhibited a lot of porcelain which were used on Titanic and also carpets and stuff like that. But no replicas of the ship except models of it and a huge replica of the ships rudder. Impressive was the ship yard ride in gondolas, the tour showed the building process of Titanic and how the labor conditions were.

 

All in all it was a nice trip but unfortunately it was less than I expected to be.

 

We found a really great pub here in Belfast. It’s called “The Empire” and it calls itself a music hall. The name is as good as one’s word. It has a really beautiful interior accessories. But let us put the focus on the music. There are nearly every day live music bands Playing, stand up comedians and they are great. But sometimes, the sound is.. let us say.. horrible to loud and the PA sound system is a bit misconfigured. So sometimes  listen to the music is not that much fun as it could be. But I discovered a new proclivity for me, listen to live bands in pubs. Great! I will try hard to take this new proclivity with me and I hope I am able to indulge in this new proclivity. It is another brilliant thing I learned from this wonderful culture.

At the end of this awesome weekend every one of us took a shower and make oneself comfortable to fade away this bank holiday. While Tim was taking a shower I went to my room to bring something when I suddenly heard a new noise in it, just a click. I followed it and it came from behind the headboard of my bed. I couldn’t see anything, but then it dawned on me so I thought “look at the ceiling” and yes, there was incessantly water dropping from the ceiling! Bingo! Jazzy! I immediately called Laurence, he is the person of response for our apartment and he promised me to fix it. So we will see what will happen.

You probably already read that Tim, Rene, Tobi and I rented a car to drive along the Causeway Coastal Route. One station of our tour was Giant’s Causeway. It was overwhelming to see this stunning landscape and this nice coast. I have never seen such a beautiful place. The only unpleasant thing was these masses of tourists. You couldn’t take a photo without having a tourist crossing your way or sitting on a rock. Whatever, finally the Causeway’s charm atoned it for us.

The whole time we wondered how these rock formations were created. It was fascinating and we decided to take a rest offshore to enjoy the surge and the awesome view. It was also fascinating that this only occurs at this place, whereas a few meters besides there are only normal rocks.

We had a great time there and it was absolutely unforgettable.

Working in this institute is quite awesome! My colleagues are polite, attentive and benevolent, my supervisor is such a funny guy; we guffaw every morning about his jokes. But if he needs to be the boss, you will respect him and you know that he is the boss. I am really grateful for having my placement at ECIT Institute, I had to choose on which areas I want to improve my knowledge and they do absolutely everything to realize my wishes and needs! It’s absolutely brilliant and I don’t tire of saying “thank you very much”. For example, they allocate me my own Cisco lab for two weeks and I am allowed to implement a site to site VPN in my own testing network. It’s just out of this world. Besides my chosen projects I am responsible for doing the daily service support and that really improves my English skills. It’s great, that’s what I am here for. So in my opinion I really found the pot of gold, my heartfelt thanks to Kevin Shine who arranged this placement for me.

Something about ECIT Institute: As I told you in an elder entry the Institute is located on the Queens Island next to the Titanic dock and its pump house. So the view is great but from the technician view, the things they develop are equal the sights. I am not allowed to talk about details but they develop chips for European Space Agency (ESA), they develop battle dresses for army which are able to acquire the vital signs of the soldier in the battle, his position and all these data are encrypted broadcasted to the headquarter. Also they develop chips for virus behaviour detection and how to eliminate them before they infect the system. It was more than interesting to see these things. I am really happy to have the opportunity to see these things.