today and yesterday were good days. I receive two packets from Germany to ease my stay here in Ireland. Almost 3 weeks left, what is unbelievable when I think about my scare before we start our journey.
Some of my Spanish colleagues flying back to Spain for a few days in this week. I think they celebrate something or stuff like that. Hopefully they return in the next week or I have nothing to do… 😀
At work I need to save some old mail profiles. Just the normal way: permissions via AD and then copy and paste. But the English part in every task makes it to a challenge. It would be great when I find a job or a company in the future with some English employee’s. It was interesting in the FU-Berlin and in Ireland as well and maybe I will find some in my next and last project in the Max- Planck- Institute.
The weather here in Ireland was good the last few days (Irish good) but today it rains again. I stop writing for a few minutes and now the sun is shinning o.O
On Monday I had a day of peace and quiet to myself because the guys went up Cave Hill, the same thing I did two days before. (remember the long blog entry on Monday, I bet you don’t :D)
I took the opportunity to clean the apartment and baked a bread, yummy gray bread, it turned out quit nicely. Furthermore I went for a littel stroll through the Queens Quarter but I forgot to bring my camera.
The next day was Tuesday, as many of you will probably have guessed, and the first day at work after the long weekend. I prepared three new laser printers that will be installed in Omagh today by Gordon and build myself a new Windows 7 image for future use.
On Friday I will go up to Armagh with Robin to install a new printer and setup the VPN between Armagh and Cultra Manor, I’m curious how the Armagh Country Museum looks like.
The time since my last post was pretty quiet. Last week, Mr Bavar and Mrs Neumann visited our apartment and as Alexander already said, we proudly presented our, not so silent, water heater and the rest of our “spectacular” apartment.
Like Alexander, I think that three blog posts per week are a little bit too much and two should be more than enough because during the working week you don’t have the time to do something else than buy some food, eat and rest for the next work day.
There where nothing really new at work. We are continuously working on our Webpage and are making tests with the parking machine and the self-made electronic circuits.
The weekend itself was pretty quiet too. I tried to relax as much as possible.
But unfortunately I was able to hit a nerve in my arm (that’s what the doctor said) because since Monday morning I feel a small numbness in my fingers on the right hand. But it should go away during the next weeks. I definitively hope that it will go away because it’s kind of scary.
On Monday I didn’t sleep that long, just until 11 o‘ clock :P. I couldn’t sleep that long because I had plans. We wanted to go up to the Cavehill and wanted to check out Belfast’s castle.
So at 12 o’clock Daniel, Clemens, Sean and I started walking in the direction of the mountains. The way up to the mountain is almost 10km long.
First we took a look at the castle. It is a small castle with a restaurant or something like that but we didn’t go inside. Outside was a little garden with nice flowers.
After a little break in the garden we started to go up. It took us about 45 min to go up because the hill is just 400 m high but it is a nice promotion and you get a very nice view over Belfast. See for yourself.
When we were up we had a large break and enjoyed the prospect.
So here are some pictures. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Incidentally, we had to walk the whole way back. We were back by 18 o’clock. My feet hurt and I needed a shower. 😀
Unfortunately I did not get the blog entry finished by Monday because I had an headaches in the evening!
And on Sunday we had problems with the internet but now it works with the LAN cable! Tomorrow someone will be coming by to check the bad network here.
all these Blog posts are so annoying. Three per week is way to much. One, maybe two are okay but you can’t write something down were you have no time for. In the week you simply can’t do anything exciting. One Post for your work and one post for the weekend is more than enough in my opinion. But hey it’s not my problem so I write down what happened and that’s it 🙂
This long weekend was a big fail. In the night from Friday to Saturday I sleep for around 2 hours and the difference handicap me through the whole weekend. I sleep at the day’s and was awake at the night and that sucks! On Sunday I couldn’t even go with Stefan and Erik to the airport because I was so tired in the morning. (at least I was lucky in this special situation but it sucks anyway). Today I am tired as well but after a hard day at work I hopefully can sleep early today.
In the last week Mr. Bavar and Mrs. Neumann visited me at my workplace. It was a little bit surprising because they said they come on Thursday but it was Tuesday morning. In the evening they visited our apartment and we proudly showed them our „80 dB hot water heater“ 😀
At the end of our first month in Dublin, I can only agree with Mr. Bavar and Mrs. Neumann. I am really surprised how good we manage all this here in Ireland.
Additionally to the comparison of expectation to reality I would like to reflect on what we have been doing so far and what we plan to do.
So what we did so far…
We have had a general look around in the city to find decent spots. Also we have had looks at a few pubs inside and outside of temple bar as well as the Irish nightlife itself (was a whole lot of fun!). We of course have had a LOT of work and I am doing many phone calls to customers. I have been „on site“ meaning at the place of the customer (a golf club) to set up a new cloud system. Other than that we have have enjoyed the evenings in general and the highlight so far was our visit in Howth.
My greatest accomplishment…
I managed to get used to the bloody Irish keyboard layout! *YAY*. Also I managed to understand the Irish people with the strong accent.
And we still plan to…
As our journey to the west coast failed (more about that next Blog) we will do it on a different approach next weekend. Also we still plan to do the Celtic tour and i personally plan to take at least one day off and do NOTHING at all, did not manage to do that yet.
Well, I will have plenty to write then and for sure tell you about! See you then!
I know, my last entry is just one day old, but I wanted to differ between two different tours.
So I will give you now the pictures from my Tour to Glendalough, the Wicklow Mountains, and Kilkenny.
This time my Tour started at 8:50 so I was able to sleep a bit longer. Our Stop was Glendalough within the Wicklow Mountains. It is a very old Cemetery and an Old Abbey. The Wicklow Mountains themself do not need any explanations. They´re just awesome and wonderful!
After this we went to Kilkenny. The smallest Town in Ireland which could be called a „Town“ and the only Town which is not on the Coast of Ireland. But here, have a look on your own!
Kilkenny Castle
Wicklow Mountains
Landscape Wicklow Mountains
Old Ruins everywhere
Small Stream 🙂
Wicklow Mountains again 😀
The lake is the rest of an old glacier
Lake with Mountains
One very old tree
Typical irish forest
Old Monastery
The emblem of Glendalough! And a tower behind of the emblem 😉
The Lake in the Background is the irish expression to „Loch Ness“
first of I’m sorry that I couldn’t update the update the Blog as planned on Friday & yesterday, Sunday, evening. The reason for that is our network, somehow every weekend or network begins to act up and then it’s no longer possible to access the Internet, well at least not entirely because sometimes its possible to access websites saved in your DNS cache but even that is rare. The main problem is that some idiot changes the configuration of the gateway for the whole network, mind you all apartments are going through the same gateway, and resets the changes we made last weekend to get it running again and we are not able to access the gateway at the moment. As a result we have DHCP leases with the duration of „forever“ and duplicated addresses, I’m only able to write this blog entry because there is no one on the network so early in the morning (most people are sleeping till noon).
To come to the point, this point entry will sum up my experiences for the rest of the last week and I will continue my normal blogging cycle.
Alright lets get started!
On Wednesday I was visited by Mrs. Neumann, my supervisor at the Max-Planck Institution, and Mr. Bavar, the supervisor for the AFIB, to check how I’m doing.
We had a little chat and I showed them my workplace, told them about the work I do at the museum and they got to meet my colleagues. As they had a tight schedule they couldn’t stay long and left after 20 minutes to visit my classmate Henrik and our accommodation.
Groupshot of Mrs. Neumann, Mr. Flanagan and me
The rest of the day I spent with writing the documentation for the DrayTek routers I’m installing and started to clean up my desk in preparation for the arrival of the bench table we ordered.
And for the people who don’t know what bench table is I’ll give a short explanation, the rest of you can skip to the next paragraph.
A bench table is basically a computer case for testing purposes, it allows the user to access and exchange parts easily without taking out other parts. They decided to buy one after I pointed out that it would be easier to test hardware for defects at a bench table then assembling a new test PC every time they want to test a graphics card.
On Thursday I was tasked with the problem to find out how to install the Microsoft System Center Client software on a Mac client. Well I found out what the necessary requirements are but I will have to work my way through the necessary deployment of certificates and distribution points, I think it could take a while till I fully understand how to get things running.
The next day I went to work at Ulster Museum again where I helped Graham and Robin to take down the screen in the lecture hall, after the screen was down we had to calibrate the colors for the projector, because now it’s projecting right at the wall, and adjust the spotlights for the stage so that they don’t throw shadows. It was quit fun because we got to toy around with the new A/V (audio & video) rack the installed, which meant we inserted a Blu-ray disk and watched videos on YouTube, but all in the name of calibration of course 😛
On Friday evening we had a LAN Party again but I went to bed early because we planed to hike up to Belfast Castle and from there up Cave Hill.
The next day I knew the plans have been cancelled because most of them went to bed between 2 or 3 and they wouldn’t be up till noon.
But after I got up at 8 and saw that the weather looked really nice I decided to go alone and started my hike at 9:30 after I packed my bag with water, cereal bars and of course my camera.
I walked past City Hall, of which I took pictures but they were deleted because of foobar (unknown reason), through the city centre, took a left at St. Annes’s Cathedral, took a right at Carlisle Circus and walked straight down Antrim Road until I reached the entrance to Cave Hill Park after a 90 minutes walk.
Halfway there
Entrance gate Cave Hill park
From there I took the path that lead me to Belfast Castle, a truly wonderful building with a neat little park/garden and an incredible view over Belfast.
Backside of Belfast Castle
At the castle I took my first break and ate breakfast, sandwiches bought at Tesco on my way through city centre, and enjoyed the view over Belfast from a bench in the park. Shortly after that I started my ascension to the peak of Cave Hill.
At first I walked through the forest surrounding the foot of Cave Hill and followed the Cave Hill trail marked by stones along the way.
Helpful little helpers
Path trough the woods
When I broke through the forest line and looked up the step face of Cave Hill it was truly breathtaking. I took a short break to enjoy the view and to eat a cereal bar.
Indescribable with words
Along the way I found out why Cave Hill is called Cave Hill, because of the caves, big surprise I know :D, there are five caves of unnatural origin in Cave Hill, that’s what Wikipedia says but I only found one.
Entrance to one the name giving caves
Anyway following the path leading to the top I enjoyed a growing panorama spanning all of Belfast, Belfast’s surroundings and even a glimpse of Scotland beyond the sea in the distance.
great view isn't it?
After around 90 minutes of hiking I arrived at the top of Cave Hill and was almost blown away the strong winds, that suddenly appeared because the step side of the mountain shielded me all the way up.
Arriving at the top I made my way to McArts Fort, the point on Cave Hill with probably the best view, there I met Andrea and Joanna, two really nice girls from Switzerland.
View at McArts Fort
Me at McArts Fort
We made our way back down on the other side of Cave Hill, going around the old quarry and arriving back at Belfast Castle. On our way down I was attacked by an angry bush with thorns, I its possible that I walked into it, and almost slipped on one of the steeper parts on the way. At the castle we went into the cafe in the cellar of the castle and had a tea and sandwiches and talked about our experiences in UK and Ireland. I was telling them about Belfast, Joanna told me about her stay in Scotland and Andrea about her stay in Galway. After that we took the bus back to the city centre and parted ways.
I was home around 4:30pm and went straight into the shower to relax and clean up and went to Lavery’s Bar in the evening to get a pint of Guinness and enjoy the atmosphere.
Yesterday I woke up with aching leg muscles and a stiff back, the former is a result of the hike the latter is caused by a to soft mattress.
After breakfast I waited for the rest to get up and we didn’t leave the apartment after that, with the exception of going to a shop to get whipped cream for the cheese noodles we had, they were yummy I tell you 😀
We mostly played old video games against each other, e.g. Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, CS 1.5, but the setup and configuration for everyone took longer than we hoped for.
Alright I think that’s enough for the moment and I thank everyone who has read up to this point. I hope all of you had a nice weekend.
how are you? I hope well. This weekend we had the long weekend with the bank holiday.
Our plan was, that we would rent a car and visit Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher. Everything was booked.
At sunday, as we arrived at the airport, we search for budget office first. As we spoke with the people from budget, we got to know that we are too young to rent a car. We were very konfused because at the budget website we found other information.
After this big problem we canceled the reservation. The guy from budget advised us to visit another shop. But no car rental would give us a car.
After this mess Stefan was luckily able to cancel the hotel free of charge. So we didn’t lose money.
After we arrived in our appartment we thought about what we would do this day. So we met with our other colleagues and visit the Trinity College and a very nice parc.
Saint Stephen's Green ParcTrinity College
After a long walk Stefan and I had a burger from Supermac’s and chilled the evening.
As a result the weekend wasn’t as good as we planned it. But for the next weekend we will visit the Cliff of Moher and other place with a bus-tour like Lars did.
the last few days where very hard but also very interesting. J
Yesterday I stood up at 5:30 to be as early as possible on the starting point of my tour to Cork, Blarney Castle and the Rock of Cashel. I arrived just in time and the tour started. Our Tourguide was really funny and friendly. Also his german was very well. I talked a little bit to him and I found out, that he was born in the Netherlands, studied in Southafrica and works in Ireland. Very funny guy. He was the best of my 3 Tourguides I had here in Ireland.
Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel. On this rock is a more than 1.000 years old stronghold with a cathedral, a cemetery and some Towers. It has huge importance in the Irish history. St. Patrick itself is responsible for a lot of ceremonys here and lived here a while.
Now we went to Blarneys Castle. An old Castle with the Blarney Stone on its top. The legend says, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you become gifted with eloquence and the ability to win discussions without any problems. Well, what happens, if two people debate, which both kissed the stone? I think, they will explode…
No, I didn´t kissed the stone. Everyone does this. And I don´t want their health-problems…
But the Blarney Castle was still very interesting and the different gardens there were just awesome! One of the gardens was the “Poison Garden”. The “Flowers” were easy to get and most of them really poisonous and some of them were very deadly. Nice to see them. 😉
After this we went to Cork. It is the second biggest town in Ireland (approximately a population of 200.000) and nearly completely uninteresting. I was there for more than one hour. And really, I wouldn´t like to live there.
Even if Cork was just a joke, the Tourguide and the other both stops were worth the money!
